?TI 


lity 


,     ILES     WAGNER 


THE   SIMPLE  LIFE 


THE     SIMPLE    LIFE 

BY  CHARLES   WAGNER 

Author  of  The  Better  Way 

Translated  from  the  French  by  Mary  Louise  Hendee 


With  an  Introduction  and  Biographical  Sketch 
by  Grace  King 


ALDl 


McClure,  Phillips  Sf  Co. 

New   York 

1904 


COFTKIGHT,  1901,  BY 

MrCLCRE.  PHILLIPS  4  CO. 


CONTENTS 

MM 

CHARLES   WAGNER  .  vii 

A  Biographical  Note  by  Grace  King. 

PREFACE      .  .  .        xxxvii 

By  the  Author. 

I.  OUR  COMPLEX   LIFE    ...  1 

II.  THE   ESSENCE   OF   SIMPLICITY  .  15 

III.  SIMPLICITY   OF   THOUGHT          .  22 

IV.  SIMPLICITY   OF   SPEECH      .         .  39 
V.  SIMPLE   DUTY         ....  52 

VI.     SIMPLE   NEEDS       .         .        .         .68 
VII.     SIMPLE   PLEASURES      ...     80 

VIII.     THE    MERCENARY    SPIRIT    AND 

SIMPLICITY          ....     96 

IX.     NOTORIETY    AND    THE    INGLO- 
RIOUS  GOOD  .111 


2049671 


vi  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

X.     THE    WORLD    AND    THE    LIFE 

OF  THE   HOME  .         .         .128 

XI.     SIMPLE  BEAUTY    .         .         .         .139 

XII.     PRIDE  AND  SIMPLICITY  IN  THE 

INTERCOURSE   OF   MEN    .         .151 

XIII.  THE      EDUCATION      FOR     SIM- 

PLICITY         167 

XIV.  CONCLUSION  .  .188 


CHARLES  WAGNER 


CHARLES  WAGNER 

FROM  the  great  metropolis  and  sovereign 
see    of    modern    civilization,    from    the 
world's    heart    of    sophistication,    from 
Paris,  the  complex  city,  comes  this  vol- 
ume of  little   essays,   upon   the  "simple   life."     A 
iimpid,  bubbling  spring,  fresh  and  cool  from  its  for- 
est  source,   running  down   one   of  the   boulevards, 
would  hardly  appear  more  miraculous  to  the  eye,  or 
more   refreshing    to   the  senses.     But,  quoting  our 
author :  "  as  the  fevered  patient  devoured  by  thirst 
dreams  in   his  sleep  of  cool  brooks  to  bathe  in,  of 
clear  fountains  to  drink  long  draughts  from ;  so,  in 
the  complicated  agitations  of  modern  existence,  our 
fevered  souls  dream  of  simplicity." 

"  What  is  the  simple  life  ?  "  a  Parisian  of  to-day 
might  well  ask,  as  the  old-world  Roman  asked, 
"  What  is  truth  ?  "  And  in  the  Parisian's  case  the 
answer  would  doubtless  be  forthcoming :  "  It  is  a 
form  of  life,  described  by  the  pastoral  poets,  or  the 
New  Testament,  but  not  livable  to-day,  in  any  civ- 

vii 


viii  THE    SIMPLE    LIFE 

ilized  community ;  for  to  lead  a  simple  life,  one 
must  be  born  a  simple  nature,  and  civilization  has 
carried  us  so  far  beyond  that  milestone,  even  in 
language,  that  to  be  called  simple  is  to  be  account- 
ed a  fool." 

Our  author,  however,  says  that  to  aspire  to  lead  a 
simple  life  is,  properly  speaking,  to  aspire  to  fulfill 
the  highest  human  destiny ;  and  he  doubts  whether 
such  a  life  should  have  disappeared  from  the  scope 
of  present  day  reality ;  whether  simplicity  is  to  be 
renounced  as  an  impossible  ideal,  whether  it  does 
depend  on  particular  economic  and  social  conditions 
or,  as  he  declares,  upon  the  soul  and  the  spirit. 
Instead  of  looking  towards  the  ideal  of  simplicity  in 
life  with  impotent  regret,  he  asserts  that  we  can 
make  it  the  object  of  our  resolution,  the  aim  of  our 
practical  energy.  He  affirms  that  every  move- 
ment that  humanity  has  made  towards  enlighten- 
ment and  justice,  is  in  reality  a  movement  towards 
greater  simplicity  of  life. 

What  have  we  now  ?  From  the  cradle  to  the 
tomb,  in  his  necessities,  in  his  pleasures,  in  his  con- 
ceptions of  the  world  and  of  himself,  modern  man 
struggles  amid  innumerable  complications.  "  Noth- 
ing is  simple  for  him  any  more,  neither  thinking 


CHARLES   WAGNER  ix 

nor  acting,  amusing  himself,  nor  even  dying ;  with 
our  own  hands  we  have  added  a  mass  of  difficulties 
to  life,  and  cut  off  not  a  few  of  its  pleasures."  We 
have  multiplied  our  material  needs.  If  it  had  been 
prophesied  to  the  ancients  that  one  day  humanity 
would  have  all  of  the  machinery  now  in  use,  to  sus- 
tain and  protect  natural  existence,  they  would  have 
concluded  therefrom,  first,  an  increase  of  inde- 
pendence ;  and  in  the  second  place,  a  great  de- 
crease in  the  competition  for  worldly  possessions. 
They  would  have  thought  that  the  simplification  of 
life  would  have  been  the  result  of  such  perfected 
means  of  action,  that  there  would  follow  the  reali- 
zation of  a  higher  standard  of  morality.  Nothing 
of  this  sort  has  come  to  pass ;  not  happiness,  nor 
social  peace,  nor  energy  for  good,  has  increased. 
On  the  contrary,  never  has  the  question  of  living 
been  more  acute  than  since  we  have  been  better 
fed,  better  clothed,  better  lodged.  If  you  wish  to 
see  care  for  our  material  good,  material  good  in  all 
its  luxurious  development,  observe  the  rich. 

From  all  of  this  there  has  infiltrated  into  every 
social  grade,  a  general  state  of  agitation,  more  or 
less  intense  according  to  the  varying  conditions ;  a 
state  of  mind  that  one  cannot  compare  to  anything 


x  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

more  apt  than  to  the  humor  of  spoiled,  discontent- 
ed children  —  the  more  needs,  the  more  desires  wt 
have,  the  more  quarrelsome  we  become.  To  fight 
for  bread  is  a  natural  law,  but  to  fight  for  the  super- 
fluous is  another  thing.  Hunger  has  never  driven 
men  to  such  crimes  as  have  ambition,  avarice,  the 
love  of  unwholesome  pleasure.  Egoism  has  become 
more  cruel  with  refinement. 

Shall  we  ask  if  we  have  become  better  ? 

We  must  unfetter,  liberate,  and  restore  to  honor, 
true  life,  remembering  that  the  kernel  of  human 
progress  is  moral  culture.  The  great  affair  of  life 
is,  that  man  should  remain  a  man,  live  his  life,  and 
no  matter  what  the  road  is,  march  to  his  aim,  not 
lose  his  way  in  crossroads,  nor  load  himself  with 
useless  burdens.  Let  him  keep  his  eye  on  his 
course,  on  his  struggle,  on  his  honor,  and  to  do  so 
the  better  let  him  simplify  his  baggage. 

"Simple  thoughts,  simple  words,  simple  needs, 
simple  pleasures,  simple  beauty,"  our  figurative  little 
streams  running  through  the  street  of  the  city,  turn 
the  thoughts,  no  more  surely  than  these  to  some 
source,  fresh  and  clean,  of  nature  We  would  not, 
indeed,  look  for  an  apostle  of  these  within  the  walls 
of  Paris.  Instinctively  we  lift  our  eyes  to  the  hills, 


CHARLES   WAGNER  rf 

whence,  as  in  the  days  of  the  Psalmist,  cometh 
help. 

Pasteur  Wagner  (Charles  Wagner),  as  his  name 
and  title  imply,  is  an  Alsacian,  in  truth  a  shepherd 
from  the  hill  country ;  for  his  cradle  was  set  in  a 
hamlet  of  the  Vosges  between  the  rich  fields  of 
Burgundy  and  the  fertile  plains  of  Lorraine,  among 
a  people  simple,  free,  rustic,  whose  life  and  faith 
stand  out  from  the  valley  types  on  either  side  of 
them  with  somewhat  of  the  rugged  prominence  of 
the  wooded  heights. 

He  was  born  at  Wibersville,  in  the  district  of 
Chateau  Salins,  old  department  of  the  Meurthe 
(since  annexed  to  the  German  Empire),  on  January 
3,  1852 —  born  on  Sunday  morning,  while  his  father 
was  preaching  in  the  village  church.  Hence  it  is 
hardly  necessary  to  add  that  his  father  was  a  pastor, 
as  had  been  his  grandfather,  and  both  paternal  and 
maternal  ancestors  stretching  back  almost  indefi- 
nitely. When  Charles  was  two  years  old,  the  family 
moved  to  Tiefenbach,  another  pretty  little  village 
in  the  Vosges  not  far  from  the  old  fortress  of  Petit 
Pierre.  Here  the  father  died  when  Charles,  the 
eldest  of  five  children,  was  but  seven  years  old. 
The  widow,  left  with  the  traditional  legacy  of  the 


xii  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

widow  of  a  hard-working  country  parson,  was  forced 
to  return  to  her  family,  who  lived  in  a  village  near 
Phalsbourg,  the  country  of  Erckmann  and  Chatrian. 
In  "  The  Pilgrimage  "  in  his  last  book,  "  The  Soul 
of  Things,"  Wagner  forty  years  later  describes  what 
the  village  was,  at  least  to  him  : 

"  I  wished  to  see  again  the  green  valleys  where  1 
ran  about  forty  years  ago.  In  the  embalmed  soli- 
tude of  the  meadow,  I  walked  along  the  same  little 
winding  path,  just  where  it  used  to  be.  The  brook 
runs  down  the  same  declivity,  under  the  willow 
trees.  The  image  of  the  daisies  and  the  golden 
buds  is  still  reflected  in  it.  The  furtive  trout  still 
hides  himself  from  sight.  The  world,  here,  is  gra-  • 
cious  and  small.  The  Vosges  here  become  little 
hills.  Between  their  undulations,  covered  with 
pine  and  beech  trees,  the  valleys  wind  away  to  the 
low  horizon.  The  blackbirds  answer  one  another 
from  hillock  to  hillock.  A  soft  light  envelops 
everything.  The  heart  is  calmed,  the  eyes  are 
rested.  In  this  peace  of  nature,  undisturbed  by  cry 
or  trace  of  struggle,  I  feel  myself  welcomed  like  a 
loved  traveller  who  has  returned  to  his  home.  And 
slowly  I  penetrate  into  the  sanctuary  of  memories. 
The  long  years,  the  changing  life,  the  sad  or  happy 


CHARLES   WAGNER  xiii 

stages,  known  far  away  in  the  unquiet  city,  all  re- 
cede, are  all  dispersed  into  the  form  of  a  dream.  I 
am  not  very  sure  that  this  is  I,  the  man  who  is 
known  over  there  in  the  society  of  men,  who  has  his 
name  and  his  place  marked  on  the  ardent  field  of 
battle.  What  does  appear  clear  to  me  at  the  pres- 
ent hour,  is  the  past,  the  laughing  childhood.  Is  it 
not  thou,  aged  beech,  beneath  whom  I  gathered 
mast  with  blue -eyed,  curly -haired  companions, 
smeared  with  whortleberries,  just  like  those  who  are 
now  seated  on  thy  gnarled  roots?  What  am  I  say- 
ing ?  Those  are  my  companions,  well  do  I  recognize 
them,  and  am  astonished  not  to  be  sitting  with 
them.  Why  do  they  gaze,  with  gaping  mouth  at 
me  as  if  I  were  a  stranger  ?  Have  they  then  for- 
gotten the  days  that  together,  to  the  ruination  of 
our  shoes,  we  let  ourselves  slide  down  the  rock's 
steep  side  ?  The  fresh  traces  of  our  joyous  sliding 
are  still  there. 

"  But  let  us  follow  the  valley.  It  leads  to  the 
village.  Soon,  at  the  bend  of  the  path,  houses  will 
appear,  small  but  coquettish,  poor  folks'  houses,  but 
pretty  enough  for  a  picture.  Already,  the  crowing 
of  the  cocks  is  heard.  .  .  We  are  then  going  to 
see  each  other  again,  dear  little  corner  of  the  world 


xiv  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

where  I  lived  peaceful  years  that  knew  not  evil, 
nor  death,  nor  regret  for  the  past,  nor  anguish  for 
the  future.  Once  more,  see  the  thresholds  of  the 
rustic  doors,  and  above  all,  the  house,  the  home  of 
the  long-ago,  the  parsonage  with  its  garden  and 
its  terrace,  where  on  the  fine  summer  nights,  I  hid 
myself  to  adore  the  moon." 

Charles  was  sent  to  the  primary  school  of  the 
village  for  education ;  for  culture,  his  mother 
turned  him  loose  with  nature.  He  roamed  through 
the  forests,  learning  to  know  and  be  intimate  with 
trees,  birds,  ferns,  insects,  and  he  worked  in  the 
fields  with  the  peasant  folk,  becoming  initiated 
into  the  mysteries  of  agriculture,  and  into  the  great 
wholesome  pleasures  of  physical  labor,  exercising 
his  strength  in  mowing,  for  which  he  still  retains  a 
passion,  and  which  he  says  he  would  not  exchange 
as  a  sport  for  any  in  the  vaunted  new  athletic 
movement.  Latin,  Greek  and  instruction  in  the 
doctrines  of  Lutheran  theology  from  the  Lutheran 
pastor  of  the  village  were  added  in  course  of  time 
to  the  curriculum  of  the  primary  school.  The 
classical  studies  sped  easily  enough,  and  a  few 
years  later  the  boy,  during  vacation,  was  able  to 
combine  the  reading  of  the  Iliad  with  the  Homeric 


CHARLES   WAGNER  xv 

duty  of  tending  the  kine.  The  spiritual  study 
fared  differently.  The  pastor  was  an  orthodox 
Lutheran,  and  in  this  form  of  doctrine  the  young 
boy  was  strictly  inducted.  He  was  native  born  in 
religion ;  in  the  love  of  God,  as  in  the  love  of  his 
parents.  He  submitted  to  the  pastor's  impress  with 
the  docility,  and  accepted  the  Lutheran  theology 
with  the  faith,  of  a  child ;  and  made  his  first  com- 
munion, with  a  child's  fervor  of  heart.  But,  the 
event  marked  the  end  of  his  careless,  happy  child- 
hood. The  world  that  he  knew  and  loved  was  not 
the  world  taught  by  the  orthodox  Lutheran  pastor. 
God,  the  Saviour,  the  Gospel,  the  hereafter,  all  his 
simple  religion  that  he  had  learned  from  nature, 
seen  in  the  sunlight  of  love,  was  hidden  as  by  a 
black  veil  of  sin,  suffering,  punishment.  And  an 
unconscious  quest  began,  through  the  theology  of 
the  Church,  to  find  the  God  of  childhood. 

Wagner  says  in  one  of  his  sermons  "so  many 
external  and  internal  causes  hinder  the  normal 
development  of  character  ;  there  are  so  many  hos- 
tile forces  to  crush  one,  so  many  illusions  to  lead  one 
»«tray,  that  it  takes  a  concert  of  extraordinary  cir- 
cumstances to  render  an  independent  character 
possible."  The  circumstances  are  none  the  less 


xvi  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

extraordinary  for  being  of  the  simplest  kind ;  as  in 
his  case. 

By  a  certain  determination  of  his  guardians,  the 
boy,  at  fourteen,  was  sent  to  Paris,  to  a  school  of 
preparatory  theology  there  under  the  direction  of 
Pastor  Kulm,  a  Lutheran  minister,  and  (since)  the 
distinguished  author  of  a  life  of  Luther.  Charles 
was  put  on  a  train  at  nightfall,  and  told,  "  To-mor- 
row morning,  when  they  call  out  Paris,  you  must 
get  out."  This  he  did,  falling  into  the  great 
metropolitan  world  as  one  falls  overboard  into  the 
water,  hardly  knowing  French,  hardly  knowing  any- 
thing of  the  strange  element  about  him.  The  usual 
first  year  of  despairing  homesickness  followed,  as  for 
all  country  lads  in  a  city  —  days  of  silent  dejection, 
nights  of  weeping  and  longing.  No  city  in  the 
world,  perhaps,  knows  of  these  days  as  Paris  does. 
Religion  offered  only  alternate  impulsive  moments 
of  piety  —  when  there  was  an  immense  desire  to 
love  everybody  and  save  everybody,  even  the  devil 
—  and  alternate  fear  of  a  newly  awakened  con- 
science, with  inflexible  scrutiny  of  conduct,  word, 
thought.  And  a  friend,  as  usual,  came  to  his 
rescue,  and  gave  him  his  first  intellectual  and  moral 
comfort;  and  friendship  and  habit  eased  the  remain- 


CHARLES   WAGNER  xvii 

ing  years  in  Paris  not  only  to  peace,  but  to  happi- 
ness. 

In  1869  Wagner  took  his  degree  of  B.A.  in  the 
Sorbonne,  and  inscribed  himself  as  a  student  of 
theology  in  the  University  of  Strasbourg.  An  en- 
gagement as  tutor,  undertaken  at  the  same  time, 
relieved  his  mother  from  the  expense  of  his  sup- 
port and  enabled  him  to  prolong  his  studies,  as  he 
otherwise  could  not  have  done,  until  1875.  The 
period  covered  the  crucial  crisis  of  the  Alsace-Lor- 
raine war  and  the  annexation  of  his  fatherland  to 
Germany.  But  notwithstanding  the  political  up- 
heaval, he  remained  at  his  studies,  pursuing  his  edu- 
cational course  to  the  finish. 

Indeed,  strange  to  relate  of  a  youth  of  eighteen, 
he  hardly  perceived  the  war.  He  was  absorbed  in 
his  own  state  of  mind.  The  spiritual  crisis  fore- 
doomed since  childhood  and  imminent  in  Paris, 
could  be  avoided  or  averted  no  longer.  It  broke 
over  him  now  with  the  force  of  an  equinoctial  storm. 
It  was  his  religious  climacteric.  Not  until  long 
afterward  did  he  become  aware  of  the  full  signifi- 
cance of  the  great  European  conflict. 

His  moral  and  intellectual  life  dashed  and  broke 
against  the  religious  structure  reared  in  it.  His 


xviii  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

habit  of  sounding  and  questioning  his  ideas  and  be- 
liefs, and  trying  to  find  a  reason  for  them,  had  ended 
in  making  him  doubt  everything  and  in  wiping  out 
of  his  mind  all  that  he  had  hitherto  believed.  Noth- 
ing remained  —  for  he  was  sure  of  nothing ;  as  he 
suffered  in  heart  from  homesickness  in  Paris,  he  suf- 
fered now,  from  spiritual  famine  and  distress.  Noth- 
ing could  distract  his  mind  from  himself,  not  even 
the  crashing  together  of  the  colossal  armies  of  two 
great  world-powers.  In  great  events  as  in  the  mi- 
nutest details  of  daily  life,  he  felt  only  the  terrible 
uncertainty  and  insincerity  of  all  things.  It  was 
the  old  yet  ever  new  battle-field  upon  which  young 
theologians  prove  their  calling. 

Spinoza  fell  into  his  hands.  For  two  years  he 
lived  upon  him,  and  Spinoza  replaced  all  that  he 
had  lost,  and  gave  him  a  serenity  he  had  not  known 
since  childhood.  It  was  a  continual  feast  for  his 
soul  to  plunge  into  the  pages  of  the  incomparable 
Ethics.  He  gave  not  only  admiration,  but  love  to 
the  "unknown  saint."  But  he  came,  as  he  says, 
near  drowning  himself  in  Spinoza.  He  became  so 
sure  of  God  that  he  could  believe  in  nothing  else 
than  the  Absolute.  Nothing  else  was  of  any  im- 
portance to  him  ;  all  else  insignificant  detail ;  his- 


CHARLES   WAGNER  xix 

tory,  liberty,  people,  good,  evil,  responsibility,  all  the 
great  drama  of  human  development.  Although  he 
became  deeply  interested  in  German  philosophy  as 
a  whole,  and  for  a  time  gave  himself  ardently  over 
to  the  Mystics,  Tauler,  Eckerhardt,  the  influence 
of  Spinoza  upon  him  was  not  counterbalanced,  his 
absorption  in  the  Absolute  not  disturbed.  He  lived 
in  an  ineffable  cloud-land,  far  above  the  earth  and 
the  prosaic  doings  of  man. 

"  But  it  is  not  enough,"  he  exclaims  in  a  passage 
relating  to  this  illusionary  period,  "  it  is  not  enough 
to  believe  in  God,  one  must  believe  in  man     . 
in  humanity  and  its  future." 

Such  things  come  not  by  observation.  He  can 
only  tell  when  he  became  aware  of  the  change,  in 
1872,  in  his  twentieth  year.  He  dates  his  knowl- 
edge of  it  from  two  facts  or  experiences.  The  one 
was  his  first  sight  of  the  Alps,  while  he  was  on  a 
voyage  to  Switzerland.  And  he  tells  us  how  they 
affected  him.  On  both  occasions,  passages  from 
the  Old  Testament  sang  in  his  memory. 

"  'The  Eternal  is  a  rock,  and  a  strong  refuge.'  '  I 
will  lift  up  mine  eyes  unto  the  hills,  from  whence 
cometh  my  help.'  On  their  immovable  foundations 
ranging  around  the  horizons,  white,  solemn,  majestic, 


xx  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

they  seem  to  me  to  be  God's  witnesses  which  He  has 
placed  there  to  say :  '  What  I  have  promised,  that 
will  I  do.' " 

And  across  this  massive  visible  solidity,  the  In- 
visible, of  which  all  that  the  eye  sees  is  but  the 
symbol,  appears  to  him.  And  the  words  of  the 
Spirit  resound  in  the  depths  of  his  soul :  "  Before 
the  mountains  were  brought  forth,  or  ever  thou 
hadst  formed  the  earth  and  the  world,  even  from 
everlasting  to  everlasting,  thou  art  God." 

"  For  the  mountains  shall  depart,  and  the  hills  be 
removed,  but  my  kindness  shall  not  depart  from 
thee,  nor  the  covenant  of  my  peace  be  removed." 

"  Heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but  my 
words  shall  not  pass  away." 

The  Alps  in  their  colossal  reality  seemed  to  con- 
front the  Absolute ;  and  to  say  :  "  And  we  are  not 
something  particular,  distinct?  .  .  .  Are  we  not 
something  ?  Or  are  we  only  a  detail  ?  " 

The  other  experience  was  a  very  much  more 
humble  event  but  none  the  less  significant.  It 
was  his  return  home,  after  a  long  absence.  He  saw 
his  mother  simply,  faithfully  resigned  to  her  duty, 
as  he  had  always  known  her,  and  accomplishing  her 
daily  work  with  a  tranquil  energy  which  nothing 


CHARLES   WAGNER  xxi 

wearied  or  discouraged.  From  that  moment  there 
was  appeased  that  disquietude  in  his  mind  which 
during  his  university  career  had  risen  to  the  extreme 
height  of  despair ;  he  returned  to  the  sources  of  his 
childhood's  belief  and  simple  trust.  Henceforth  a 
love  for  men  and  things  on  account  of  their  weak- 
ness and  effort  became  his  theological  guide,  and 
nothing  was  henceforth  to  appear  so  beautiful  to 
him  in  the  world  as  humanity  toiling  in  humble  and 
obscure  pathways  toward  perfection  and  light. 

Happy  once  more  in  his  mind,  Wagner  joined  in 
the  frolics  of  the  student  societies  of  Strasbourg, 
and  contributed  his  portion  to  their  boisterous 
mirth,  music,  free  discussion,  singing,  and  doggerel 
verse-making.  Sometimes,  of  a  Summer  night, 
when  honest  folks  about  him  would  be  going  to 
bed,  he  with  a  friend  would  start  on  a  tramp,  sing- 
ing, talking,  enjoying  nature  at  every  step  of  the 
way,  and  by  sunrise  would  be  in  the  beautiful  Vos- 
ges,  sometimes  thirty  miles  away. 

He  had  entered  upon  his  studies  a  child,  terrified 
by  the  orthodox  Lutheran  faith,  and  crushed  by  a 
series  of  misfortunes  and  deaths,  interpreted  as 
punishments  of  God ;  he  came  out  of  them  a 
healthy,  hearty  young  fellow,  full  of  energy  and 


xxii  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

hope,  satisfied  with  the  world,  with  man  and  with 
God. 

In  1875,  with  three  Alsacian  fellow  students, 
Wagner  left  Strasbourg  for  Gottingen,  where  he 
completed  his  theological  course.  It  was  at  the 
end  of  his  sojourn  there  that,  his  room-fellow 
deserting  him  and  defaulting  from  his  share  of  the 
bill,  Wagner  learned  the  pleasure  there  is  in  being 
without  money  —  an  experience  he  recalls,  in  his 
characteristic  manner,  in  his  last  volume,  "The 
Soul  of  Things." 

On  his  return  from  Alsace  he  was  sent  as  assist- 
ant to  the  aged  pastor,  Nessler  de  Bar,  at  the  foot 
of  Ste.  Odile  Mountain.  Here  he  remained  a  year, 
preaching  regularly  in  German  and  performing  his 
official  functions  under  the  wise  and  kindly  direc- 
tion of  the  old  pastor.  But  near  the  frontier,  in 
solitary  musings  upon  the  sites  whence  the  eye 
could  roam  from  one  country  to  the  other,  he 
realized  the  full  significance  of  the  Franco-Prussian 
war,  and  the  nature  of  the  act  of  the  annexation 
of  Alsace. 

He  began  to  apply  himself  to  the  serious  study  of 
the  French  language  and  literature,  writing  sermons 
in  French  for  future  use ;  in  short,  prepared  him-- 


CHARLES   WAGNER  xxiii 

self  to  cross  the  frontier.  Not  that  his  heart  had 
turned  against  Germany  or  towards  France,  but  the 
consequences  of  the  annexation  of  Alsace  fell  so 
heavily  upon  all  independent  minds,  that  he  did 
not  think  he  could  live  in  the  moral  and  political 
atmosphere  that  resulted  from  it.  Therefore  he 
accepted  a  position  in  Remiremont,  in  the  French 
Vosges,  where  he  remained  until  1882.  By  this 
time  he  had  accustomed  himself  to  preaching  and 
lecturing  in  French.  But  space  failed  him ;  his 
parish  was  small,  and  furnished  him  with  too  little 
work,  and  he  made  up  his  mind  to  come  in  touch 
again  with  a  living  center.  So  in  1882  he  again 
made  his  entry  into  the  great  world  of  Paris. 

To  keep  in  touch  with  the  habit  of  pastoral  prac- 
tices, he  undertook  the  church  of  a  small  parish, 
created  formerly  for  the  liberal  preacher,  Coqueral 
(the  younger).  The  parish,  neglected  since  the 
war,  and  suffering  from  the  indifference  and  dis- 
persion of  its  members,  was  almost  a  missionary 
field.  As  soon  as  he  became  acquainted  with  it, 
Wagner's  original  plan  of  following  a  course  of 
studies  fell  to  the  ground.  The  needs  he  saw  in 
the  life  of  the  working-classes  about  him  carried  the 
day.  He  had  married  a  compatriot,  an  Alsacian ; 


xxiv  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

they  had  lost  their  first  child,  left  it  buried  in  their 
native  country,  and  when  they  took  up  their  abode 
in  their  parish,  to  them  it  furnished  home,  family, 
and  country;  they  lived  there  to  within  a  few 
years. 

Wagner  first  opened  a  Sunday-school,  giving 
only  a  few  lectures,  of  evenings.  In  1885  he,  at 
the  reiterated  instances  of  friends,  commenced 
preaching  in  the  little  upstairs  room  of  the  Rue  des 
Arquebusiers,  No.  6.  From  these  simple  begin- 
nings his  congregation  has  grown  and  developed. 
His  location  was  exceptional  for  a  Protestant 
preacher,  and  he  was  very  much  attached  to  it,  not 
only  on  account  of  the  liberty  and  independence  he 
enjoyed  there,  but  also  on  account  of  the  perfect 
personal  relations  which  grew  up  between  him  and 
his  parishioners.  His  congregation,  although  not 
numerous  (in  an  American  estimate),  was  an  inter- 
esting one  from  its  component  parts,  including 
almost  every  intellectual  and  social  element  of  mod- 
ern France  —  a  congregation,  therefore,  that  was 
well  qualified  to  take  part  in  the  work  of  religious 
and  moral  unification  and  concentration  which 
Wagner  considers  the  great  work  of  the  age. 

He  is  best  seen  in   his   pulpit  —  a   tall,   broad- 


CHARLES   WAGNER  xxv 

shouldered,  commanding  figure,  a  Bismarck  in  size, 
with  a  massive  head  that  in  its  strength  looks  as 
if  it  might  have  been  cast  of  iron.  And  his  ser- 
mons, uttered  in  his  full,  resonant  voice,  have  a 
wholesome  ring  in  them  too,  something  of  the 
clashings  of  the  heroic  metal.  They  rouse  and 
startle,  like  a  call  to  arms ;  men  lift  their  heads  un- 
der them  and  straighten  their  backs.  The  sermons, 
although  not  so  announced,  advertised,  or  predeter- 
mined, are  essentially  men's  sermons,  and  they  are 
in  truth  an  alarm,  a  martial  cry  to  the  effective 
force  of  the  country,  not  for  individual  salvation, 
nor  for  church  extension,  but  for  the  world  salva- 
tion and  human  love ;  for  human  solidarity  against 
injustice,  and  for  relief  of  misfortune  ;  for  the  spirit- 
ualization  of  life,  and  the  realization  of  belief.  It 
was  these  sermons  that  forced  Wagner  from  the 
quaint,  obscure  little  upper-chamber  chapel  of  the 
Rue  des  Arquebusiers  to  the  handsome  hall  of  to- 
day on  the  Boulevard  Beaumarchais.  The  increase 
of  space  was  needed  not  for  women,  but  for  men, 
and  for  the  men  who  furnish  the  most  hopeful  soil 
for  Wagner's  seed  —  the  young  and  the  vigorous. 

Wagner's  parochial  work  has  been  supplemented 
by  Sunday  morning  lectures  from  time  to  time  to  a 


xxvi  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

different  audience,  in  a  different  quarter  of  Paris,  on 
the  Boulevard  St.  Germain.  The  force  of  his  con- 
victions as  to  the  increasing  necessity  of  such  a 
propaganda  has  driven  him  into  print.  As  a  writer 
he  is  indefatigable.  He  is  a  constant  contributor 
to  the  little  organ  of  the  Liberal  Evangelical 
Church  of  Paris,  and  is  one  of  the  most  active  mem- 
bers (with  pen  and  tongue)  of  the  "  Union  for 
Moral  Action,"  of  which,  with  Desjardins,  he  is  one 
of  the  founders. 

"  Be  a  man,"  the  text  of  one  of  his  first  sermons  in 
Paris,  on  the  occasion  of  the  consecration  of  a  young 
minister,  is  his  battle-cry  to  the  youth  not  only  of 
France,  but  now  to  the  whole  world,  and  the  mes- 
sage in  all  of  his  writings,  sermons,  and  addresses ; 
it  is  his  own  watchword,  and  the  one  he  gives  to 
sentinels  everywhere. 

He  is  a  practical  humanitarian,  and  therefore,  as 
he  sees  it,  a  practical  Christian.  A  mystic  by  tem- 
perament, and  never  separating  the  Creator  from 
creation,  seeing  and  adoring  God  in  a  flower,  in  the 
minutest  manifestation  of  life,  he  sees  Him  and 
loves  Him  most  in  the  suffering  human  family. 
"  The  highest  expression  of  God,  to  me,"  he  writes, 
"  is  the  suffering  God ;  for  Christ  has  humanized 


CHARLES   WAGNER  xxvii 

God  as  He  has  divinized  humanity.  The  old  Olym- 
pian deities  faded  like  stars  in  the  sky  when  man- 
kind turned  from  them  to  look  upon  the  Cross ; 
their  immortal  serenity  was  eclipsed  by  the  glory  of 
a  humanity  that  suffers  without  losing  hope.  If  God 
had  never  suffered,  man  would  be  greater  than  God, 
in  patience,  courage,  and  faith." 

From  his  congregation  he  has  enrolled  a  society 
of  young  men  and  one  of  young  women,  with  whom 
he  discusses  the  questions  of  the  day,  which,  as  we 
have  seen,  are  to  him  religious  questions.  His  talks 
to  the  young  men  are  upon  those  topics  which  in- 
volve their  moral  future  and  the  future  thereby  of 
their  country.  He  answers  unflinchingly  the  ques- 
tions put  to  him,  and  is  as  unhesitating  in  his  decis- 
ions between  disease  and  health  in  the  moral,  as  a 
physician  would  be  between  the  same  in  the  physi- 
cal life.  In  addition,  and  outside  his  clerical  work, 
he  has  since  his  advent  into  his  parish  held  work- 
ingmen's  meetings.  From  these  talks,  and  his  lect- 
ures and  his  daily  experiences  from  the  life  about 
him,  has  arisen  his  series  of  books.  "Justice," 
"Jeunesse"  (Youth),  "Vaillance"  (Courage),  "Le 
Long  du  Chemin "  (Along  the  Road),  "  Autour  du 
Foyer "  (Around  the  Hearth-stone),  "  La  Vie  Sim- 


xxviii  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

pie"  (The  Simple  Life),  "  Sois  un  Homme"  (Be  a 
Man),  an  address  on  the  consecration  of  a  young 
minister,  •<  L'Ame  des  Choses  "  (The  Soul  of  Things). 
What  he  says  in  his  preface  to  this  last  book  de- 
scribes the  contents  of  all :  that  he  only  describes 
and  interprets  the  changing  reflection  of  life,  now 
smiling,  now  miserable,  now  noble,  now  vile,  ideal  or 
of  the  earth,  but  always  interesting.  "  The  least 
crumb  of  reality :  an  ant  at  work,  a  child  at  play,  a 
leaf  falling  to  the  earth,  has  always  strangely  fas- 
cinated me.  As  the  cause  that  binds  them  together, 
leaves  me  cold,  just  so  does  the  simple  and  authen- 
tic phenomenon  charm  me.  A  part  of  the  great 
human  drama  is  played  in  it,  by  actors  without  paint 
and  attitudinizing.  The  attraction  of  living  things  is 
inexhaustible.  Each  one  of  them  by  an  irresistible 
movement  becomes  a  sign,  lesson,  symbol.  There  is 
no  rivulet  however  small  that  does  not  conduct  to 
the  sea.  There  is  not  a  hidden  pathway  in  the  valley 
which,  step  by  step,  does  not  lead  up  to  the  heights. 
The  whole  creation  talks  to  him  who  knows  how  to 
lend  an  ear." 

His  last  book  is  dedicated  "To  my  dear  collab- 
orators: the  flowers,  the  insects  and  the  passers- 
by." 


CHARLES   WAGNER  xxix 

The  appeal  in  these  volumes  is  so  obvious,  direct, 
earnest,  simple,  that  the  reader  seems  rather  a  lis» 
tener  to  the  sympathetic  words  of  a  friend.  Cheer- 
ing, warning,  encouraging,  chiding,  rising  in  the 
course  of  a  personal  talk  with  kindling  emotion 
from  the  small  sublimities  of  life  about  us  to  the 
great  sublimity  of  life  above.  From  our  own  ob- 
scure struggle  to  the  great  struggle  of  humanity, 
until,  within  the  heart,  there  vibrates  in  response 
the  feeling  of  what  man  was,  what  man  is,  and 
what  man  may  become. 

A  return  to  the  simple  life  is  no  new  adjuration 
from  pulpit  or  press.  It  is  a  remedy  that  perhaps 
sounded  as  commonplace  to  the  Roman  who  asked 
what  was  truth,  as  to  the  world  of  to-day.  From 
time  out  of  mind,  men  have  been  asking  for  bread 
and  receiving  something  else.  But  there  have 
been  bread-givers,  as  well  as  stone-givers,  to  men- 
dicants for  food. 

Wagner  is  a  bread-giver,  and  his  originality,  in 
a  world  full  of  originals,  perhaps  consists  only  in 
this :  that  the  bread  he  gives  is  the  bread  he  feeds 
upon.  The  bread  of  the  soul  —  the  bread  of  life 
that  recurs  over  and  over  again  on  his  pages  —  is 
with  him  no  mere  symbolical  expression.  He 


xxx  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

knows  what  it  means  to  hunger  for  it  —  to  labor  for 
it.  It  is  no  flight  of  imagination  for  him  to  write 
of  wheat  thus : 

"By  the  bread  that  Christ  broke,  one  evening  in 
sign  of  redeeming  sacrifice  and  everlasting  com- 
munion, we  can  say,  that  wheat  entered  into  its 
apotheosis.  Nothing  that  concerns  it  is  indifferent 
to  us.  What  poetry  in  its  sowing !  in  the  black 
furrows,  to  which  laborious  hands  are  confiding  the 
bread  of  the  morrow.  .  .  .  From  the  day  that 
it  comes  out  of  the  earth  to  the  last  rays  of  the  Oc- 
tober sun,  throughout  the  long  sleep  of  Winter,  the 
awakening  in  the  Spring,  to  the  harvest  in  August, 
our  anxious  attention  follows  the  evolution  of  the 
tender  green  blade,  destined  to  become  the  nour- 
ishment of  men.  In  time,  it  is  a  swelling  sea  of 
green  constellated  with  poppies  and  bluebottles. 

.  .  In  July,  the  fields  look  like  gold.  And 
when  the  wind  blows  and  rustles  the  stalks  to- 
gether we  seem  already  to  hear  the  grain  running 
in  the  bushel  measures.  The  bread  sings  in  it  in 
fine  weather;  but  if  the  horizon  darkens  a  shiver 
runs  through  the  stalks,  as  in  the  heart  of  the  peas- 
ant. ...  At  last  is  the  harvest,  the  barn,  the 
threshers.  Then  comes  the  grinding  in  the  mill, 


CHARLES   WAGNER  xxxi 

and  the  kneading  by  bakers,  or  housewives.  The 
bread  is  on  the  table.  Before  eating  it,  think,  that 
it  is  the  fruit  of  the  labor  of  men  and  the  Son  of 
God.  Take  it  in  gratitude  and  fraternal  love.  Do 
not  suffer  a  crumb  of  it  to  be  lost.  Break  it  will- 
ingly with  those  who  have  none.  As  the  wind 
blows,  as  the  fountain  gushes,  as  the  morning 
brightens,  so  wheat  grows,  for  all." 

"Jeunesse"  (Youth)  appeared  simultaneously  al- 
most with  a  notable  brochure  of  its  day  :  "  Te  De- 
voir Present"  (The  Present  Duty),  by  Dr.  Paul 
Desjardins.  Both  were  preceded  by  an  article, 
which  once  read  is  not  easily  forgotten,  "  The  Spir- 
itualization  of  Thought  in  France  "  by  the  late  emi- 
nent Baronne  Blase  de  Bury  (Contemporary  Review, 
November,  1891)-  She,  with  her  characteristic 
brilliancy  of  judgment,  gives  the  causes  that  led 
up  to  the  state  of  uneasiness  of  conscience  existing 
in  France  ;  and  enumerating  the  names  of  those  in 
art,  politics  and  letters  who,  having  come  to  a  part- 
ing of  the  roads,  had  turned  into  the  one  leading  to 
other  ideals  than  the  ones  hitherto  followed,  she 
predicted  with  confidence  a  revival  in  France,  in 
national  life,  in  religion,  in  art  and  letters,  and 
cited  M.  Paul  Desjardins  and  Pasteur  Wagner 


xxxii  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

among  the  workers  destined  to  be  factors  in  this 
revival. 

To  M.  Desjardins'  theme,  "  The  Moral  Distress 
of  France  and  Its  Possible  Remedy  in  the  Educa- 
tion of  the  Masses — a  Working  Solidarity  for  High- 
er Morality,"  Wagner's  book  conies  as  a  virile 
answer,  "  The  future  of  the  country  lies  in  the 
hands  of  its  youth."  And  with  vigorous  elo- 
quence that  strikes  upon  the  heart  in  chapter  after 
chapter  he  forces  and  reinforces  his  command  upon 
France  to  save  and  preserve  the  manhood  of  France. 

There  are  no  insoluble  problems  for  him,  in 
France,  or  in  the  world.  He  sees  no  problem,  only 
men  and  women  who  can  be  made  better  by  leading 
better  lives  —  and  he  re-echoes  the  quotation  given 
by  Desjardins  from  M.  Charles  Secretan :  "  The 
morality  of  the  greater  number  is  the  only  resource 
by  which  liberty  can  live  in  a  democracy."  An 
alliance  of  effort  for  moral  action  ;  a  union  of  work- 
ers, based  upon  no  religious  belief;  not  upon  con- 
victions about  life  and  death,  and  the  mysteries  of 
good  and  evil ;  but  upon  those  of  duty  as  patriots 
and  citizens. 

Such  a  nucleus  of  action  was  formed  after  the  pub- 
lications of  the  three  authors.  It  was  called  "  The 


CHARLES   WAGNER  xxxiii 

Union  for  Moral  Action."  They  themselves  called 
it :  "  A  laic  militant  order  for  private  and  social 
duty."  As  might  be  expected  from  his  experience 
and  character,  Wagner  has  proved  one  of  its  most 
active  members.  But  in  this,  as  in  his  parochial 
work,  he  has  thrown  as  much  reserve  over  his  share 
of  the  labor  as  is  consistent  with  efficient  progress. 
But  in  the  weekly  Bulletin  published  by  the  union 
the  record  is  kept  of  what  can  be  regarded  only  as 
an  extraordinary  maintenance  of  that  ideal  of  un- 
selfish labor,  in  a  relentless  pushing  forward  in 
what  they  call  "  a  movement  of  opinion  ";  writing 
regular  articles  for  publication,  holding  meetings, 
forming  new  circles  and  centres  of  influence  ;  con- 
necting in  correspondence  men  and  women  of 
"  good -will  "  in  whichever  part  of  the  world 
French  men  and  women  may  be  working,  some- 
times in  very  obscure  and  difficult  positions. 

There  have  been  many  practical  results  that 
should  not  be  passed  over,  but  space  allows  only  of 
the  notice  of  one,  which  must  be  considered,  what- 
ever may  come  afterwards,  as  the  great  achieve- 
ment of  the  Union  for  Moral  Action  :  its  coopera- 
tion in  the  establishing  of  popular  universities. 
The  workingmen's  circles,  formed  by  Wagner,  and 


xxxiv  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

the  Pastors  Wagner  and  Allier  together,  were  the 
first  experiments  in  this  line.  A  few  years  later, 
an  isolated,  independent  circle  of  workingmen  at- 
tempted to  meet  once  a  week  for  mutual  improve- 
ment and  discussion ;  harassed  and  suspected  by  the 
police,  they  succeeded  only  in  launching  a  little 
monthly  sheet  called  The  Cooperation  of  Ideas. 
Here  again  every  detail  is  interesting,  and  every 
step  towards  the  popular  university  system  import- 
tant.  But  to  give  only  the  resultant  fact :  The  first 
popular  university  was  opened  in  the  Faubourg  St. 
Antoine,  and,  M.  Gabriel  Seailles  being  prevented 
by  illness  from  making  the  opening  address,  Pasteur 
Wagner  replaced  him.  This  was  in  1898.  To- 
day there  are  twenty  popular  universities  in  active 
operation  in  Paris,  and  over  one  hundred  in 
France. 

Wagner's  faith  is  that  he  has  been  led  by  God 
to  the  work  he  has  to  do,  through  specially  ap- 
pointed parties.  Hence,  as  he  sees  it,  his  life  of 
spiritual  conflict  and  vicissitudes  of  fortune  has 
brought  him  in  sympathetic  contact  with  the  most 
opposed  of  opinions  and  conditions.  For  this  pur- 
pose he  has  been  taught  by  experience  to  know  and 
to  appreciate  both  sides  of  a  cruel  strife,  to  reconcile 


CHARLES   WAGNER  xxxv 

in  his  own  soul  forces  that,  though  irreconcilable  in 
appearance,  were  fundamentally  one. 

To  conclude,  some  words  from  his  own  answers  to 
a  private  interpellation  as  to  his  standpoint  in  regard 
to  religion  and  life  are  given  with  his  kind  and  cor- 
dial permission : 

"  It  has  been  given  to  me  to  be  able  to  com- 
bine harmoniously  in  my  soul  many  forces,  hostile 
in  appearance,  but  fundamentally  united  into  one 
solidarity.  I  have  lived  with  rich  and  poor,  wise 
and  ignorant,  city  folks  and  peasants,  Germans  and 
French,  believers  and  atheists,  the  champions  of  the 
past  and  the  champions  of  the  present,  and  I  have 
understood  and  loved  them  all.  I  love  life  and 
humanity  under  all  their  wholesome  sincere  forms, 
in  all  their  griefs  and  their  hopes,  and  even  in  all 
the  tempests  of  thought  and  deed.  Homo  sum : 
kumani  nihil  a  me  alienum  puto.  Thus  I  have  learned 
to  love  the  blind  bard  of  Tios  with  a  love  that 
grows  daily  more  ardent.  I  am  a  pagan  and  an 
ancient,  a  child  of  nature  come  to  God  through 
Christ.  I  belong  not  to  the  sad  but  to  the  joyous 
Christ.  I  follow  Christ  because  I  have  heard  him 
speak  the  natural  language  —  the  language  of  hu- 
manity —  and  because  I  have  heard  beating  in  his 


xxxvi  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

heart  the  heart  of  all.  Therefore  he  is  not  for  me  a 
person  who  was  and  is  no  longer,  but  the  eternal 
contemporary  of  us  all,  the  symbol  of  a  spirit  which 
rests  with  us  always.  The  visible  truths  of  the 
human  and  divine  Evangel  rise  every  morning  on 
my  horizon  like  new  luminaries,  and  I  salute  and 
adore  them  with  the  same  admiration  as  if  I  were 
seeing  them  every  morning  for  the  first  time.  Mira- 
cles, dogmas,  forms  which  worried  me  at  first  worry 
me  no  longer.  Across  them  all  I  see  only  one  thing 
—  man  in  search  of  God,  God  in  search  of  man." 

GRACE  KING. 

New  Orleans,  1901. 


PREFACE 


1 


PREFACE 

HE  sick  man,  wasted  by  fever,  consumed 
with  thirst,  dreams  in  his  sleep  of  a 
fresh  stream  wherein  he  bathes,  or  of  a 
clear  fountain  from  which  he  drinks  in 
great  draughts.  So,  amid  the  confused  restlessness 
of  modern  life,  our  wearied  minds  dream  of  sim- 
plicity. 

The  thing  called  by  this  fine  name  —  is  it  a  van- 
ished good  ?  I  do  not  think  so.  If  simplicity  de- 
pended upon  certain  exceptional  conditions,  found 
only  in  rare  epochs  of  the  past,  we  must  indeed  re- 
nounce all  idea  of  realizing  it  again.  Civilization  is 
no  more  to  be  brought  back  to  its  beginnings  than 
the  flood-tide  of  a  river  to  the  peaceful  valley  where 
alders  meet  above  its  source. 

But  simplicity  does  not  belong  to  such  and  such 
economic  or  social  phases  :  rather,  it  is  a  spirit,  able 
Co  vivify  and  modify  lives  of  very  different  sorts. 
Far  from  being  reduced  to  vainly  regretting  it,  we 


xxxviii          THE  SIMPLE   LIFE 

may,  I  affirm,  make  it  the  object  of  resolve,  the  end 
of  practical  effort. 

ASPIRE  to  simple  living  ?  That  means, 
aspire  to  fulfil  the  highest  human  destiny 
All  of  men's  agitations  for  greater  justice 
and  more  light  have  been  also  movements  toward  a 
simpler  life ;  and  the  simplicity  of  olden  times,  in 
manners,  art,  and  ideas,  still  keeps  its  incomparable 
value,  only  because  it  achieved  the  setting  forth  in 
high  relief  of  certain  essential  sentiments  and  cer- 
tain permanent  truths.  It  is  a  simplicity  to  cherish 
and  reverence ;  but  he  little  comprehends  it  who 
thinks  its  peculiar  virtue  lies  in  its  outward  mani- 
festations. In  brief,  if  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  be 
simple  in  the  forms  our  fathers  used,  we  may  re- 
main simple,  or  return  to  simplicity,  in  their  spirit. 
Our  ways  are  not  their  ways,  but  the  journey's  end 
remains  in  truth  the  same.  It  is  always  the  pole- 
star  that  guides  the  seaman,  whether  he  cruise 
under  sail  or  on  a  steamship.  To  make  headway 
toward  this  end,  with  the  means  at  our  command, 
this  is  the  essential  thing,  to-day  as  yesterday  ;  and 
it  is  by  frequent  deviations  from  our  route,  that  we 
have  confused  and  complicated  our  life. 


PREFACE  xxxix 

SHOULD    I  succeed  in  making  others  share 
this    quite    spiritual    notion    of  simplicity,   I 
shall  not  have  labored  in  vain.     For  some  of 
my  readers  will  then  think  that  such  an  idea  should 
inform  our  customs,  manners,  and  development,  and 
will  begin  to  cultivate  it  within  themselves,  sacrific- 
ing to  it  some  of  those  habits  which  hinder  us  from 
being  men. 

Too  many  hampering  futilities  separate  us  from 
that  ideal  of  the  true,  the  just,  and  the  good,  that 
should  warm  and  animate  our  hearts.  All  this 
brushwood,  under  pretext  of  sheltering  us  and  our 
happiness,  has  ended  by  shutting  out  our  sun. 
When  shall  we  have  the  courage  to  meet  the 
delusive  temptations  of  our  complex  and  unprofit- 
able life  with  the  sage's  challenge :  "  Out  of  my 
light "  ? 

Paris,  May,  1895. 


I 

OUR   COMPLEX   LIFE 

AT  the  home  of  the  Blanchards,  every- 
thing is  topsy-turvy,  and  with   reason. 
Think  of  it !     Mile.    Yvonne  is  to  be 
married  Tuesday,  and  to-day  is  Friday  ! 
Callers  loaded  with  gifts,  and  tradesmen  bending 
under  packages,  come  and  go  in  endless  procession. 
The  servants  are  at  the  end  of  their  endurance.     As 
for  the  family  and  the  betrothed,  they    no    longer 
have  a  life  or  a  fixed  abode.     Their  mornings  are 
spent  with  dressmakers,  milliners,  upholsterers,  jewel- 
ers, decorators,  and  caterers.      After  that,  comes  a 
rush  through  offices,  where  one  waits  in  line,  gazing 
vaguely  at  busy  clerks  engulfed  in  papers.     A  fortu- 
nate thing,  if  there  be  time  when  this  is  over,  to  run 
home  and  dress  for  the  series  of  ceremonial  dinners 
—  betrothal  dinners,  dinners  of  presentation,  the  set- 
tlement dinner,  receptions,  balls.     About  midnight, 
home  again,  harassed  and  weary,  to  find  the  latest 

accumulation  of  parcels,  and  a  deluge  of  letters  — 

1 


2  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

congratulations,  felicitations,  acceptances  and  regrets 
from  bridesmaids  and  ushers,  excuses  of  tardy  trades- 
men. And  the  contretemps  of  the  last  minute  — 
a  sudden  death  that  disarranges  the  bridal  party  ; 
a  wretched  cold  that  prevents  a  favorite  cantatrice 
from  singing,  and  so  forth,  and  so  forth.  Those 
poor  Blanchards !  They  will  never  be  ready,  and 
they  thought  they  had  foreseen  everything ! 

Such  has  been  their  existence  for  a  month.  No 
longer  possible  to  breathe,  to  rest  a  half-hour,  to 
tranquillize  one's  thoughts.  No,  this  is  not  living  ! 

Mercifully,  there  is  Grandmother's  room.  Grand- 
mother is  verging  on  eighty.  Through  many  toils 
and  much  suffering,  she  has  come  to  meet  things 
with  the  calm  assurance  which  life  brings  to  men 
and  women  of  high  thinking  and  large  heart.  She 
sits  there  in  her  arm-chair,  enjoying  the  silence  of 
long  meditative  hours.  So  the  flood  of  affairs  surg- 
ing through  the  house,  ebbs  at  her  door.  At  the 
threshold  of  this  retreat,  voices  are  hushed  and 
footfalls  softened ;  and  when  the  young  Jlances 
want  to  hide  away  for  a  moment,  they  flee  to 
Grandmother. 

"  Poor  children  !  "  is  her  greeting.  "  You  are 
worn  out  1  Rest  a  little  and  belong  to  each  other. 


OUR   COMPLEX   LIFE  3 

All  these  things  count  for  nothing.  Don't  let  them 
absorb  you,  it  isn't  worth  while." 

They  know  it  well,  these  two  young  people. 
How  many  times  in  the  last  weeks  has  their  love 
had  to  make  way  for  all  sorts  of  conventions  and 
futilities !  Fate,  at  this  decisive  moment  of  their 
lives,  seems  bent  upon  drawing  their  minds  away 
from  the  one  thing  essential,  to  harry  them  with  a 
host  of  trivialities  ;  and  heartily  do  they  approve 
the  opinion  of  Grandmamma  when  she  says,  between 
a  smile  and  a  caress  : 

"  Decidedly,  my  dears,  the  world  is  growing  too 
complex  ;  and  it  does  not  make  people  happier  — 
quite  the  contrary  !  " 

I  ALSO,  am  of  Grandmamma's  opinion.   From  the 
cradle  to  the  grave,  in  his  needs  as  in  his  pleas- 
ures, in  his  conception  of  the  world  and  of  him- 
self, the  man  of  modern  times  struggles  through  a 
maze  of  endless  complication.    Nothing  is  simple  any 
longer  :   neither  thought  nor  action ;  not  pleasure, 
not  even  dying.    With  our  own  hands  we  have  added 
to  existence  a  train  of  hardships,  and   lopped   off 
many  a  gratification.     I  believe   that  thousands  of 
our  fellow-men,  suffering  the  consequences  of  a  ton 


4  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

artificial  life,  will  be  grateful  if  we  try  to  give  ex- 
pression to  their  discontent,  and  to  justify  the  re- 
gret for  naturalness  which  vaguely  oppresses  them. 

Let  us  first  speak  of  a  series  of  facts  that  put  into 
relief  the  truth  we  wish  to  show 

The  complexity  of  our  life  appears  in  the  num- 
ber of  our  material  needs.  It  is  a  fact  universally 
conceded,  that  our  needs  have  grown  with  our  re- 
sources. This  is  not  an  evil  in  itself ;  for  the  birth 
of  certain  needs  is  often  a  mark  of  progress.  To 
feel  the  necessity  of  bathing,  of  wearing  fresh  linen, 
inhabiting  wholesome  houses,  eating  healthful  food, 
and  cultivating  our  minds,  is  a  sign  of  superiority. 
But  if  certain  needs  exist  by  right,  and  are  desir- 
able, there  are  others  whose  effects  are  fatal,  which, 
like  parasites,  live  at  our  expense :  numerous  and 
imperious,  they  engross  us  completely. 

Could  our  fathers  have  foreseen  that  we  should 
some  day  have  at  our  disposal  the  means  and  forces 
we  now  use  in  sustaining  and  defending  our  material 
life,  they  would  have  predicted  for  us  an  increase  of 
independence,  and  therefore  of  happiness,  and  a  de- 
crease in  competition  for  worldly  goods:  they  might 
even  have  thought  that  through  the  simplification  of 
life  thus  made  possible,  a  higher  degree  of  morality 


OUR   COMPLEX  LIFE  5 

would  be  attained.  None  of  these  things  has  come 
to  pass.  Neither  happiness,  nor  brotherly  love,  nor 
power  for  good  has  been  increased.  In  the  first 
place,  do  you  think  your  fellow-citizens,  taken  as  a 
whole,  are  more  contented  than  their  forefathers,  and 
less  anxious  about  the  future  ?  I  do  not  ask  if  they 
should  find  reason  to  be  so,  but  if  they  really  are  so. 
To  see  them  live,  it  seems  to  me  that  a  majority  of 
them  are  discontented  with  their  lot,  and,  above  all, 
absorbed  in  material  needs  and  beset  with  cares  for 
the  morrow.  Never  has  the  question  of  food  and 
shelter  been  sharper  or  more  absorbing  than  since 
we  are  better  nourished,  better  clothed,  and  better 
housed  than  ever.  He  errs  greatly  who  thinks  that 
the  query,  "  What  shall  we  eat,  and  what  shall  we 
drink,  and  wherewithal  shall  we  be  clothed  ?  "  pres- 
ents itself  to  the  poor  alone,  exposed  as  they  are  to 
the  anguish  of  morrows  without  bread  or  a  roof. 
With  them  the  question  is  natural,  and  yet  it  is 
with  them  that  it  presents  itself  most  simply.  You 
must  go  among  those  who  are  beginning  to  enjoy  a 
little  ease,  to  learn  how  greatly  satisfaction  in  what 
one  has,  may  be  disturbed  by  regret  for  what  one 
lacks.  And  if  you  would  see  anxious  care  for  future 
material  good,  material  good  in  all  its  luxurious  de- 


6  THE   SIMPLE  LIFE 

velopment,  observe  people  of  small  fortune,  and, 
above  all,  the  rich.  It  is  not  the  woman  with  one 
dress  who  asks  most  insistently  how  she  shall  be 
clothed,  nor  is  it  those  reduced  to  the  strictly  nec- 
essary who  make  most  question  of  what  they  shall 
eat  to-morrow.  As  an  inevitable  consequence  of 
the  law  that  needs  are  increased  by  their  satisfac- 
tion, the  more  goods  a  man  has,  the  more  he  wants.  The 
more  assured  he  is  of  the  morrow,  according  to  the 
common  acceptation,  the  more  exclusively  does  he 
concern  himself  with  how  he  shall  live,  and  pro- 
vide for  his  children  and  his  children's  children. 
Impossible  to  conceive  of  the  fears  of  a  man  estab- 
lished in  life  — -  their  number,  their  reach,  and  their 
shades  of  refinement. 

From  all  this,  there  has  arisen  throughout  the 
different  social  orders,  modified  by  conditions  and 
varying  in  intensity,  a  common  agitation  —  a  very 
complex  mental  state,  best  compared  to  the  petu- 
lance of  a  spoiled  child,  at  once  satisfied  and  discon- 
tented 


OUR  COMPLEX  LIFE  7 

IF  we  have  not  become  happier,  neither  have 
we  grown  more  peaceful  and  fraternal.  The 
more  desires  and  needs  a  man  has,  the  more 
occasion  he  finds  for  conflict  with  his  fellow-men ; 
and  these  conflicts  are  more  bitter  in  proportion  as 
their  causes  are  less  just.  It  is  the  law  of  nature  to 
fight  for  bread,  for  the  necessities.  This  law  may 
seem  brutal,  but  there  is  an  excuse  in  its  very  harsh- 
ness, and  it  is  generally  limited  to  elemental  cruel- 
ties. Quite  different  is  the  battle  for  the  superflu- 
ous —  for  ambition,  privilege,  inclination,  luxury. 
Never  has  hunger  driven  man  to  such  baseness  as 
have  envy,  avarice,  and  thirst  for  pleasure.  Egotism 
grows  more  maleficent  as  it  becomes  more  refined. 
We  of  these  times  have  seen  an  increase  of  hostile 
feeling  among  brothers,  and  our  hearts  are  less  at 
peace  than  ever.* 

After  this,  is  there  any  need  to  ask  if  we  have 
become  better  ?  Do  not  the  very  sinews  of  virtue 
lie  in  man's  capacity  to  care  for  something  outside 
himself?  And  what  place  remains  for  one's  neigh- 
bor in  a  life  given  over  to  material  cares,  to  artificial 

*  The  author  refers  to  the  unparalleled  bitterness  of  the 
conflict  in  France  between  Dreyfusards  and  anti-Dreyfus- 
ards. 


8  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

needs,  to  the  satisfaction  of  ambitions,  grudges,  and 
whims  ?  The  man  who  gives  himself  up  entirely  to 
the  service  of  his  appetites,  makes  them  grow  and 
multiply  so  well  that  they  become  stronger  than  he, 
and  once  their  slave,  he  loses  his  moral  sense,  loses 
his  energy,  and  becomes  incapable  of  discerning  and 
practicing  the  good.  He  has  surrendered  himself  tc 
the  inner  anarchy  of  desire,  which  in  the  end  gives 
birth  to  outer  anarchy.  In  the  moral  life  we  goven 
ourselves.  In  the  immoral  life  we  are  governed  by 
our  needs  and  passions ;  thus,  little  by  little,  the 
bases  of  the  moral  life  shift,  and  the  law  of  judg- 
ment deviates. 

For  the  man  enslaved  to  numerous  and  exacting 
needs,  possession  is  the  supreme  good  and  the  source 
of  all  other  good  things.  It  is  true  that  in  the  fierce 
struggle  for  possession,  we  come  to  hate  those  who 
possess,  and  to  deny  the  right  of  property  when  this 
right  is  in  the  hands  of  others  and  not  in  our  own. 
But  the  bitterness  of  attack  against  others'  posses- 
sions is  only  a  new  proof  of  the  extraordinary  im- 
portance we  attach  to  possession  itself.  In  the  end, 
people  and  things  come  to  be  estimated  at  their 
selling  price,  or  according  to  the  profit  to  be  drawn 
from  them.  What  brings  nothing  is  worth  nothing : 


OUR  COMPLEX  LIFE  9 

he  who  has  nothing,  is  nothing.  Honest  poverty 
risks  passing  for  shame,  and  lucre,  however  filthy,  is 
not  greatly  put  to  it  to  be  accounted  for  merit. 

Some  one  objects  :  "  Then  you  make  wholesale 
condemnation  of  progress,  and  would  lead  us  back  to 
the  good  old  times  —  to  asceticism  perhaps." 

Not  at  all.  The  desire  to  resuscitate  the  past 
is  the  most  unfruitful  and  dangerous  of  Utopian 
dreams,  and  the  art  of  good  living  does  not  consist  in 
retiring  from  life.  But  we  are  trying  to  throw  light 
upon  one  of  the  errors  that  drag  most  heavily  upon 
human  progress,  in  order  to  find  a  remedy  for  it — • 
namely,  the  belief  that  man  becomes  happier  and 
better  by  the  increase  of  outward  well-being. 
Nothing  is  falser  than  this  pretended  social  axiom ; 
on  the  contrary,  that  material  prosperity  without  an 
offset,  diminishes  the  capacity  for  happiness  and 
debases  character,  is  a  fact  which  a  thousand  exam- 
ples are  at  hand  to  prove.  The  worth  of  a  civiliza- 
tion is  the  worth  of  the  man  at  its  center.  When 
this  man  lacks  moral  rectitude,  progress  only  makes 
bad  worse,  and  further  embroils  social  problems. 


10  THE   SIMPLE  LIFE 

THIS  principle  may  be  verified  in  other 
domains  than  that  of  material  well-being. 
We  shall  speak  only  of  education  and  lib- 
erty. We  remember  when  prophets  in  good  repute 
announced  that  to  transform  this  wicked  world  into 
an  abode  fit  for  the  gods,  all  that  was  needed  was 
the  overthrow  of  tyranny,  ignorance,  and  want — 
those  three  dread  powers  so  long  in  league.  To- 
day, other  preachers  proclaim  the  same  gospel.  We 
have  seen  that  the  unquestionable  diminution  of 
want  has  made  man  neither  better  nor  happier. 
Has  this  desirable  result  been  more  nearly  attained 
through  the  great  care  bestowed  upon  instruction  ? 
It  does  not  yet  appear  so,  and  this  failure  is  the  de- 
spair of  our  national  educators. 

Then  shall  we  stop  the  people's  ears,  suppress 
public  instruction,  close  the  schools  ?  By  no  means. 
But  education,  like  the  mass  of  our  age's  inventions, 
is  after  all  only  a  tool ;  everything  depends  upon 
the  workman  who  uses  it.  .  .  .  So  it  is  with 
liberty.  It  is  fatal  or  lifegiving  according  to 
*iie  use  made  of  it.  Is  it  liberty  still,  when  it 
Is  the  prerogative  of  criminals  or  heedless  blun- 
derers ?  Liberty  is  an  atmosphere  of  the  higher 
life,  and  it  is  only  by  a  slow  and  patient  inward 


OUR  COMPLEX  LIFE  11 

transformation  that  one  becomes  capable  of  breath- 
ing it. 

All  life  must  have  its  law,  the  life  of  man  so 
much  the  more  than  that  of  inferior  beings,  in  that 
it  is  more  precious  and  of  nicer  adjustment.  This 
law  for  man  is  in  the  first  place  an  external  law,  but 
it  may  become  an  internal  law.  When  man  has 
once  recognized  the  inner  law,  and  bowed  before  it, 
through  this  reverence  and  voluntary  submission  he 
is  ripe  for  liberty :  so  long  as  there  is  no  vigorous 
and  sovereign  inner  law,  he  is  incapable  of  breath- 
ing its  air;  for  he  will  be  drunken  with  it,  mad- 
dened, morally  slain.  The  man  who  guides  his  life 
by  inner  law,  can  no  more  live  servile  to  outward 
authority  than  can  the  full-grown  bird  live  impris- 
oned in  the  eggshell.  But  the  man  who  has  not 
yet  attained  to  governing  himself  can  no  more  live 
under  the  law  of  liberty  than  can  the  unfledged 
bird  live  without  its  protective  covering.  These 
things  are  terribly  simple,  and  the  series  of  demon- 
strations old  and  new  that  proves  them,  increases 
daily  under  our  eyes.  And  yet  we  are  as  far  as 
ever  from  understanding  even  the  elements  of  this 
most  important  law.  In  our  democracy,  how  many 
are  there,  great  and  small,  who  know,  from  having 


12  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

personally  verified  it,  lived  it  and  obeyed  it,  this 
truth  without  which  a  people  is  incapable  of  govern- 
ing itself  ?  Liberty?  —  it  is  respect;  liberty?  —  it  is 
obedience  to  the  inner  law ;  and  this  law  is  neither 
the  good  pleasure  of  the  mighty,  nor  the  caprice  of 
the  crowd,  but  the  high  and  impersonal  rule  before 
which  those  who  govern  are  the  first  to  bow  the  head. 
Shall  liberty,  then,  be  proscribed  ?  No  ;  but  men 
must  be  made  capable  and  worthy  of  it,  otherwise 
public  life  becomes  impossible,  and  the  nation,  undis- 
ciplined and  unrestrained,  goes  on  through  license 
into  the  inextricable  tangles  of  demagoguery. 

WHEN  one  passes  in  review  the  individual 
causes  that  disturb  and  complicate  our 
social  life,  by  whatever  names  they  are 
designated,  and  their  list  would  be  long,  they  all 
lead  back  to  one  general  cause,  which  is  this :  the 
confusion  of  the  secondary  with  the  essential.  Material 
comfort,  education,  liberty,  the  whole  of  civilization 
—  these  things  constitute  the  frame  of  the  picture ; 
but  the  frame  no  more  makes  the  picture  than  the 
frock  the  monk  or  the  uniform  the  soldier.  Here 
the  picture  is  man,  and  man  with  his  most  intimate 
possessions  —  namely,  his  conscience,  his  character 


OUR   COMPLEX   LIFE  13 

and  his  will.  And  while  we  have  been  elaborating 
and  garnishing  the  frame,  we  have  forgotten,  neg- 
lected, disfigured  the  picture.  Thus  are  we  load- 
ed with  external  good,  and  miserable  in  spiritual 
life ;  we  have  in  abundance  that  which,  if  must  be, 
we  can  go  without,  and  are  infinitely  poor  in  the 
one  thing  needful.  And  when  the  depth  of  our 
being  is  stirred,  with  its  need  of  loving,  aspiring, 
fulfilling  its  destiny,  it  feels  the  anguish  of  one 
buried  alive  —  is  smothered  under  the  mass  of  sec- 
ondary things  that  weigh  it  down  and  deprive  it 
of  light  and  air. 

We  must  search  out,  set  free,  restore  to  honor  the 
true  life,  assign  things  to  their  proper  places,  and 
remember  that  the  center  of  human  progress  is 
moral  growth.  What  is  a  good  lamp  ?  It  is  not 
the  most  elaborate,  the  finest  wrought,  that  of  the 
most  precious  metal.  A  good  lamp  is  a  lamp  that 
gives  good  light.  And  so  also  we  are  men  and  citi- 
zens, not  by  reason  of  the  number  of  our  goods  and 
the  pleasures  we  procure  for  ourselves,  not  through 
our  intellectual  and  artistic  culture,  nor  because  of 
the  honors  and  independence  we  enjoy;  but  by 
virtue  of  the  strength  of  our  moral  fibre.  And  this 
is  not  a  truth  of  to-day  but  a  truth  of  all  times. 


14  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

At  no  epoch  have  the  exterior  conditions  which 
man  has  made  for  himself  by  his  industry  or  his 
knowledge,  been  able  to  exempt  him  from  care  for 
the  state  of  his  inner  life.  The  face  of  the  world 
alters  around  us,  its  intellectual  and  material  factors 
vary;  and  no  one  can  arrest  these  changes,  whose 
suddenness  is  sometimes  not  short  of  perilous.  But 
the  important  thing  is  that  at  the  center  of  shift- 
ing circumstance  man  should  remain  man,  live  his 
life,  make  toward  his  goal.  And  whatever  be  his 
road,  to  make  toward  his  goal,  the  traveler  must 
not  lose  himself  in  crossways,  nor  hamper  his  move- 
ments with  useless  burdens.  Let  him  heed  well 
his  direction  and  forces,  and  keep  good  faith  ;  and 
that  he  may  the  better  devote  himself  to  the  es- 
sential —  which  is  to  progress  —  at  whatever  sacri- 
fice, let  hun  simplify  his  baggage. 


II 

THE   ESSENCE   OF   SIMPLICITY 

BEFORE  considering  the  question  of  a 
practical  return  to  the  simplicity  of  which 
we  dream,  it  will  be  necessary  to  define 
simplicity  in  its  very  essence.  For  in 
regard  to  it  people  commit  the  same  error  that 
we  have  just  denounced,  confounding  the  sec- 
ondary with  the  essential,  substance  with  form. 
They  are  tempted  to  believe  that  simplicity  presents 
certain  external  characteristics  by  which  it  may  be 
recognized,  and  in  which  it  really  consists.  Sim- 
plicity and  lowly  station,  plain  dress,  a  modest 
dwelling,  slender  means,  poverty  —  these  things 
seem  to  go  together.  Nevertheless,  this  is  not  the 
case.  Just  now  I  passed  three  men  on  the  street : 
the  first  in  his  carriage  ;  the  others  on  foot,  and 
one  of  them  shoeless.  The  shoeless  man  does  not 
necessarily  lead  the  least  complex  life  of  the 
three.  It  may  be,  indeed,  that  he  who  rides  in 

his  carriage  is  sincere  and   unaffected,  in  spite  of 
15 


16  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

his  position,  and  is  not  at  all  the  slave  of  his  wealth  ; 
it  may  be  also  that  the  pedestrian  in  shoes  neither 
envies  him  who  rides  nor  despises  him  who  goes 
unshod  ;  and  lastly,  it  is  possible  that  under  his 
rags,  his  feet  in  the  dust,  the  third  man  has  a  hatred 
of  simplicity,  of  labor,  of  sobriety,  and  dreams  only  of 
idleness  and  pleasure.  For  among  the  least  simple 
and  straightforward  of  men  must  be  reckoned  pro- 
fessional beggars,  knights  of  the  road,  parasites,  and 
the  whole  tribe  of  the  obsequious  and  envious, 
whose  aspirations  are  summed  up  in  this :  to  arrive 
at  seizing  a  morsel  —  the  biggest  possible  —  of  that 
prey  which  the  fortunate  of  earth  consume.  And  to 
this  same  category,  little  matter  what  their  station 
in  life,  belong  the  profligate,  the  arrogant,  the 
miserly,  the  weak,  the  crafty.  Livery  counts  for 
nothing :  we  must  see  the  heart.  No  class  has  the 
prerogative  of  simplicity  ;  no  dress,  however  humble 
in  appearance,  is  its  unfailing  badge.  Its  dwelling 
need  not  be  a  garret,  a  hut,  the  cell  of  the  ascetic 
nor  the  lowliest  fisherman's  bark.  Under  all  the 
forms  in  which  life  vests  itself,  in  all  social  posi- 
tions, at  the  top  as  at  the  bottom  of  the  ladder,  there 
are  people  who  live  simply,  and  others  who  do 
not.  We  do  not  mean  by  this  that  simplicity  betrays 


THE   ESSENCE   OF   SIMPLICITY     17 

itself  in  no  visible  signs,  has  not  its  own  habits,  its 
distinguishing  tastes  and  ways  ;  but  this  outward 
show,  which  may  now  and  then  be  counterfeited, 
must  not  be  confounded  with  its  essence  and  its  deep 
and  wholly  inward  source.  Simplicity  is  a  state  oj 
mind.  It  dwells  in  the  main  intention  of  our  lives. 
A  man  is  simple  when  his  chief  care  is  the  wish  to  be 
what  he  ought  to  be,  that  is,  honestly  and  naturally 
human.  And  this  is  neither  so  easy  nor  so  impossi- 
ble as  one  might  think.  At  bottom,  it  consists  in 
putting  our  acts  and  aspirations  in  accordance  with 
the  law  of  our  being,  and  consequently  with  the 
Eternal  Intention  which  willed  that  we  should  be  at 
all.  Let  a  flower  be  a  flower,  a  swallow  a  swallow,  a 
rock  a  rock,  and  let  a  man  be  a  man,  and  not  a  fox, 
a  hare,  a  hog,  or  a  bird  of  prey  :  this  is  the  sum  of 
the  whole  matter. 

Here  we  are  led  to  formulate  the  practical  ideal  of 
man.  Everywhere  in  life  we  see  certain  quantities 
of  matter  and  energy  associated  for  certain  ends. 
Substances  more  or  less  crude  are  thus  transformed 
and  carried  to  a  higher  degree  of  organization.  It 
is  not  otherwise  with  the  life  of  man.  The  human 
ideal  is  to  transform  life  into  something  more  excel- 
lent than  itself.  We  may  compare  existence  to  raw 


18  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

material.  What  it  is,  matters  less  than  what  is  made 
of  it,  as  the  value  of  a  work  of  art  lies  in  the  flower- 
ing of  the  workman's  skill.  We  bring  into  the 
world  with  us  different  gifts  :  one  has  received  gold, 
another  granite,  a  third  marble,  most  of  us  wood  or 
clay.  Our  task  is  to  fashion  these  substances. 
Everyone  knows  that  the  most  precious  material 
may  be  spoiled,  and  he  knows,  too,  that  out  of  the 
least  costly  an  immortal  work  may  be  shaped.  Art 
is  the  realization  of  a  permanent  idea  in  an  ephemeral 
form.  True  life  is  the  realization  of  the  higher  vir- 
tues,—  justice,  love,  truth,  liberty,  moral  power,— 
in  our  daily  activities,  whatever  they  may  be.  And 
this  life  is  possible  in  social  conditions  the  most 
diverse,  and  with  natural  gifts  the  most  unequal. 
It  is  not  fortune  or  personal  advantage,  but  our 
turning  them  to  account,  that  constitutes  the  value 
of  life.  Fame  adds  no  more  than  does  length  of 
days  :  quality  is  the  thing. 

Need  we  say  that  one  does  not  rise  to  this  point 
of  view  without  a  struggle  ?  The  spirit  of  simplic- 
ity is  not  an  inherited  gift,  but  the  result  of  a  labo- 
rious conquest.  Plain  living,  like  high  thinking,  is 
simplification.  We  know  that  science  is  the  hand- 
ful of  ultimate  principles  gathered  out  of  the  tufted 


THE   ESSENCE   OF   SIMPLICITY      19 

mass  of  facts  ;  but  what  gropings  to  discover  them  J 
Centuries  of  research  are  often  condensed  into  a 
principle  that  a  line  may  state.  Here  the  moral  life 
presents  strong  analogy  with  the  scientific.  It,  too, 
begins  in  a  certain  confusion,  makes  trial  of  itself, 
seeks  to  understand  itself,  and  often  mistakes.  But 
by  dint  of  action,  and  exacting  from  himself  strict 
account  of  his  deeds,  man  arrives  at  a  better  knowl- 
edge of  life.  Its  law  appears  to  him,  and  the  law  is 
this  :  Work  out  your  mission.  He  who  applies  him- 
self to  aught  else  than  the  realization  of  this  end, 
loses  in  living  the  raison  d'etre  of  life.  The  egoist 
does  so,  the  pleasure-seeker,  the  ambitious :  he 
consumes  existence  as  one  eating  the  full  corn  in 
the  blade,  —  he  prevents  it  from  bearing  its  fruit; 
his  life  is  lost.  Whoever,  on  the  contrary,  makes 
his  life  serve  a  good  higher  than  itself,  saves  it  in 
giving  it.  Moral  precepts,  which  to  a  superficial 
view  appear  arbitrary,  and  seem  made  to  spoil  our 
zest  for  life,  have  really  but  one  object  —  to  pre- 
serve us  from  the  evil  of  having  lived  in  vain.  That 
is  why  they  are  constantly  leading  us  back  into  the 
same  paths  ;  that  is  why  they  all  have  the  same 
meaning :  Do  not  waste  your  life,  make  it  bear  fruit ; 
learn  how  to  give  it,  in  order  that  it  may  not  con- 


20  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

sume  itself!  Herein  is  summed  up  the  experience 
of  humanity,  and  this  experience,  which  each  man 
must  remake  for  himself,  is  more  precious  in  pro- 
portion as  it  costs  more  dear.  Illumined  by  its 
light,  he  makes  a  moral  advance  more  and  more 
sure.  Now  he  has  his  means  of  orientation,  his  in- 
ternal norm  to  which  he  may  lead  everything  back ; 
and  from  the  vacillating,  confused,  and  complex  be- 
ing that  he  was,  he  becomes  simple.  By  the  cease- 
less influence  of  this  same  law,  which  expands 
within  him,  and  is  day  by  day  verified  in  fact,  his 
opinions  and  habits  become  transformed. 

Once  captivated  by  the  beauty  and  sublimity  of 
the  true  life,  by  what  is  sacred  and  pathetic  in  this 
strife  of  humanity  for  truth,  justice,  and  brotherly 
love,  his  heart  holds  the  fascination  of  it.  Gradu- 
ally everything  subordinates  itself  to  this  power- 
ful and  persistent  charm.  The  necessary  hierarchy 
of  powers  is  organized  within  him  :  the  essential 
commands,  the  secondary  obeys,  and  order  is  born 
of  simplicity.  We  may  compare  this  organization  of 
the  interior  life  to  that  of  an  army.  An  army  is 
strong  by  its  discipline,  and  its  discipline  consists  in 
respect  of  the  inferior  for  the  superior,  and  the  con- 
centration of  all  its  energies  toward  a  single  end : 


THE  ESSENCE   OF   SIMPLICITY     21 

discipline  once  relaxed,  the  army  suffers.  It  will 
not  do  to  let  the  corporal  command  the  general. 
Examine  carefully  your  life  and  the  lives  of  others. 
Whenever  something  halts  or  jars,  and  complica- 
tions and  disorder  follow,  it  is  because  the  corporal 
has  issued  orders  to  the  general.  Where  the  nat- 
ural law  rules  in  the  heart,  disorder  vanishes. 

I  despair  of  ever  describing  simplicity  in  any 
worthy  fashion.  All  the  strength  of  the  world  and 
all  its  beauty,  all  true  joy,  everything  that  consoles, 
that  feeds  hope,  or  throws  a  ray  of  light  along  our 
dark  paths,  everything  that  makes  us  see  across  our 
poor  lives  a  splendid  goal  and  a  boundless  future, 
comes  to  us  from  people  of  simplicity,  those  who 
have  made  another  object  of  their  desires  than  the 
passing  satisfaction  of  selfishness  and  vanity,  and 
have  understood  that  the  art  of  living  is  to  know 
how  to  give  one's  life. 


Ill 

SIMPLICITY  OF  THOUGHT 

IT  is  not  alone  among  the  practical  manifes- 
tations of  our  life  that  there  is  need  of  mak- 
ing a  clearing :  the  domain  of  our  ideas  is  in 
the    same    case.       Anarchy   reigns    in   human 
thought :  we  walk  in  the  woods,  without  compass  or 
sun,  lost  among  the  brambles  and  briars  of  infinite 
detail. 

When  once  man  has  recognized  the  fact  that  he 
has  an  aim,  and  that  this  aim  is  to  be  a  man,  he  or- 
ganizes his  thought  accordingly.  Every  mode  of 
thinking  or  judging  which  does  not  make  him  bet- 
ter and  stronger,  he  rejects  as  dangerous. 

And  first  of  all  he  flees  the  too  common  contrari- 
ety of  amusing  himself  with  his  thought.  Thought 
is  a  tool,  with  its  own  proper  function  :  it  isn't  a 
toy.  Let  us  take  an  example.  Here  is  the  studio 
of  a  painter.  The  implements  are  all  in  place  : 
everything  indicates  that  this  assemblage  of  means 
is  arranged  with  view  to  an  end.  Throw  the  room 


SIMPLICITY   OF  THOUGHT          23 

open  to  apes.  They  will  climb  on  the  benches, 
swing  from  the  cords,  rig  themselves  in  draperies, 
coif  themselves  with  slippers,  juggle  with  brushes, 
nibble  the  colors,  and  pierce  the  canvases  to  see 
what  is  behind  the  paint.  I  don't  question  their 
enjoyment ;  certainly  they  must  find  this  kind  of 
exercise  extremely  interesting.  But  an  atelier  is 
not  made  to  let  monkeys  loose  in.  No  more  is 
thought  a  ground  for  acrobatic  evolutions.  A  man 
worthy  of  the  name,  thinks  as  he  is,  as  his  tastes 
are  :  he  goes  about  it  with  his  whole  heart,  and  not 
with  that  fitful  and  sterile  curiosity  which,  under 
pretext  of  observing  and  noting  everything,  runs  the 
risk  of  never  experiencing  a  deep  and  true  emotion 
or  accomplishing  a  right  deed. 

Another  habit  in  urgent  need  of  correction,  or- 
dinary attendant  on  conventional  life,  is  the  mania 
for  examining  and  analyzing  one's  self  at  every  turn. 
I  do  not  invite  men  to  neglect  introspection  and  the 
examination  of  conscience.  The  endeavor  to  un- 
derstand one's  own  mental  attitudes  and  motives  of 
conduct  is  an  essential  element  of  good  living. 
But  quite  other  is  this  extreme  vigilance,  this  in- 
cessant observation  of  one's  life  and  thoughts,  this 
dissecting  of  one's  self,  like  a  piece  of  mechanism. 


24  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

It  is  a  waste  of  time,  and  goes  wide  of  the  mark. 
The  man  who,  to  prepare  himself  the  better  for  walk- 
ing, should  begin  by  making  a  rigid  anatomical  ex- 
amination of  his  means  of  locomotion,  would  risk 
dislocating  something  before  he  had  taken  a  step. 
You  have  what  you  need  to  walk  with,  then  for- 
ward !  Take  care  not  to  fall,  and  use  your  forces 
with  discretion.  Potterers  and  scruple-mongers  are 
soon  reduced  to  inaction.  It  needs  but  a  glimmer 
of  common  sense  to  perceive  that  man  is  not  made 
to  pass  his  life  in  a  self-centered  trance. 

And  common  sense  —  do  you  not  find  what  is 
designated  by  this  name  becoming  as  rare  as  the 
common-sense  customs  of  other  days  ?  Common 
sense  has  become  an  old  story.  We  must  have 
something  new  —  and  we  create  a  factitious  exist- 
ence, a  refinement  of  living,  that  the  vulgar  crowd 
has  not  the  wherewithal  to  procure.  It  is  so  agree- 
able to  be  distinguished  !  Instead  of  conducting 
ourselves  like  rational  beings,  and  using  the  means 
most  obviously  at  our  command,  we  arrive,  by  dint 
of  absolute  genius,  at  the  most  astonishing  singu- 
larities. Better  off  the  track  than  on  the  main 
line  I  All  the  bodily  defects  and  deformities  that 
orthopedy  treats,  give  but  a  feeble  idea  of  the 


SIMPLICITY   OF  THOUGHT         25 

humps,  the  tortuosities,  the  dislocations  we  have 
inflicted  upon  ourselves  in  order  to  depart  from 
simple  common  sense ;  and  at  our  own  expense  we 
learn  that  one  does  not  deform  himself  with  im- 
punity. Novelty,  after  all,  is  ephemeral.  Nothing 
endures  but  the  eternal  commonplace  ;  and  if  one 
departs  from  that,  it  is  to  run  the  most  perilous 
risks.  Happy  he  who  is  able  to  reclaim  himself, 
who  finds  the  way  back  to  simplicity. 

Good  plain  sense  is  not,  as  is  often  imagined,  the 
innate  possession  of  the  first  chance-comer,  a  mean 
and  paltry  equipment  that  has  cost  nothing  to  any- 
one. I  would  compare  it  to  those  old  folk-songs, 
unfathered  but  deathless,  which  seem  to  have  risen 
out  of  the  very  heart  of  the  people.  Good  sense  is 
a  fund  slowly  and  painfully  accumulated  by  the 
labor  of  centuries.  It  is  a  jewel  of  the  first  water, 
whose  value  he  alone  understands  who  has  lost  it, 
or  who  observes  the  lives  of  others  who  have  lost 
it.  For  my  part,  I  think  no  price  too  great  to  pay 
for  gaining  it  and  keeping  it,  for  the  possession  of 
eyes  that  see  and  a  judgment  that  discerns.  One 
takes  good  care  of  his  sword,  that  it  be  not  bent  or 
rusted  :  with  greater  reason  should  he  give  heed  to 
his  thought. 


26  THE   SIMPLE  LIFE 

But  let  this  be  well  understood :  an  appeal  to 
common  sense  is  not  an  appeal  to  thought  that 
grovels,  to  narrow  positivism  which  denies  every- 
thing it  cannot  see  or  touch.  For  to  wish  that  man 
should  be  absorbed  in  material  sensations,  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  the  high  realities  of  the  inner  life,  is  also 
a  want  of  good  sense.  Here  we  touch  upon  a  ten- 
der point,  round  which  the  greatest  battles  of  hu- 
manity are  waging.  In  truth  we  are  striving  to 
attain  a  conception  of  life,  searching  it  out  amid 
countless  obscurities  and  griefs :  and  everything 
that  touches  upon  spiritual  realities  becomes  day  by 
day  more  painful.  In  the  midst  of  the  grave  per- 
plexities and  transient  disorders  that  accompany 
great  crises  of  thought,  it  seems  more  difficult  than 
ever  to  escape  with  any  simple  principles.  Yet 
necessity  itself  comes  to  our  aid,  as  it  has  done  for 
the  men  of  all  times.  The  program  of  life  is  ter- 
ribly simple,  after  all,  and  in  the  fact  that  existence 
so  imperiously  forces  herself  upon  us,  she  gives  us 
notice  that  she  precedes  any  idea  of  her  which  we 
may  make  for  ourselves,  and  that  no  one  can  put  off 
living  pending  an  attempt  to  understand  life.  Our 
philosophies,  our  explanations,  our  beliefs  are  every- 
where confronted  by  facts,  and  these  facts,  prodi- 


SIMPLICITY   OF  THOUGHT         27 

gious,  irrefutable,  call  us  to  order  when  we  would 
deduce  life  from  our  reasonings,  and  would  wait 
to  act  until  we  have  ended  philosophizing.  It  is 
this  happy  necessity  that  prevents  the  world  from 
stopping  while  man  questions  his  route.  Travelers 
of  a  day,  we  are  carried  along  in  a  vast  movement  to 
which  we  are  called  upon  to  contribute,  but  which 
we  have  not  foreseen,  nor  embraced  in  its  entirety, 
nor  penetrated  as  to  its  ultimate  aims.  Our  part  is 
to  fill  faithfully  the  role  of  private,  which  has  de- 
volved upon  us,  and  our  thought  should  adapt  itself 
to  the  situation.  Do  not  say  that  we  live  in  more 
trying  times  than  our  ancestors,  for  things  seen  from 
afar  are  often  seen  imperfectly :  it  is  moreover 
scarcely  gracious  to  complain  of  not  having  been  born 
in  the  days  of  one's  grandfather.  What  we  may  be- 
lieve least  contestable  on  the  subject  is  this :  from 
the  beginning  of  the  world  it  has  been  hard  to  see 
clearly;  right  thinking  has  been  difficult  every- 
where and  always.  In  the  matter  the  ancients 
were  in  no  wise  privileged  above  the  moderns,  and  it 
might  be  added  that  there  is  no  difference  between 
men  when  they  are  considered  from  this  point  of 
view.  Master  and  servant,  teacher  and  learner, 
writer  and  artisan  discern  truth  at  the  same  cost, 


28  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

The  light  that  humanity  acquires  in  advancing  is  no 
doubt  of  the  greatest  use  ;  but  it  also  multiplies  the 
number  and  extent  of  human  problems.  The  diffi- 
culty is  never  removed,  the  mind  always  encounters 
its  obstacle.  The  unknown  controls  us  and  hems  us 
in  on  all  sides.  But  just  as  one  need  not  exhaust  a 
spring  to  quench  his  thirst,  so  we  need  not  know 
everything  to  live.  Humanity  lives  and  always  hat 
lived  on  certain  elemental  provisions. 

We  will  try  to  point  them  out.  First  of  all,  hu 
inanity  lives  by  confidence.  In  so  doing  it  but 
reflects,  commensurate  with  its  conscious  thought, 
that  which  is  the  hidden  source  of  all  beings.  An 
imperturbable  faith  in  the  stability  of  the  universe 
and  its  intelligent  ordering,  sleeps  in  everything  that 
exists.  The  flowers,  the  trees,  the  beasts  of  the 
field,  live  in  calm  strength,  in  entire  security. 
There  is  confidence  in  the  falling  rain,  in  dawn- 
ing day,  in  the  brook  running  to  the  sea.  Every- 
thing that  is  seems  to  say :  "  I  am,  therefore  I 
should  be ;  there  are  good  reasons  for  this,  rest 
assured." 

So,  too,  mankind  lives  by  confidence.  From  the 
simple  fact  that  he  is,  man  has  within  him  the  suffi- 
cient reason  for  his  being  —  a  pledge  of  assurance 


SIMPLICITY   OF  THOUGHT         29 

He  reposes  in  the  power  which  has  willed  that  he 
should  be.  To  safeguard  this  confidence,  to  see  that 
nothing  disconcerts  it,  to  cultivate  it,  render  it  more 
personal,  more  evident — toward  this  should  tend 
the  first  effort  of  our  thought.  All  that  augments 
confidence  within  us  is  good,  for  from  confidence  is 
born  the  life  without  haste,  tranquil  energy,  calm 
action,  the  love  of  life  and  its  fruitful  labor.  Deep- 
seated  confidence  is  the  mysterious  spring  that  sets 
in  motion  the  energy  within  us.  It  is  our  nutri- 
ment. By  it  man  lives,  much  more  than  by  the 
bread  he  eats.  And  so  everything  that  shakes  this 
confidence  is  evil— poison,  not  food. 

Dangerous  is  every  system  of  thought  that  at- 
tacks the  very  fact  of  life,  declaring  it  to  be  an  evil. 
Life  has  been  too  often  wrongly  estimated  in  this 
century.  What  wonder  that  the  tree  withers  when 
its  roots  are  watered  with  corrosives.  And  there  is 
an  extremely  simple  reflection  that  might  be  made 
in  the  face  of  all  this  negation.  You  say  life  is  an 
evil.  Well ;  what  remedy  for  it  do  you  offer  ?  Can 
you  combat  it,  suppress  it?  I  do  not  ask  you  to 
suppress  your  own  life,  to  commit  suicide  ; — of  what 
advantage  would  that  be  to  us  ? — but  to  suppress  life, 
not  merely  human  life,  but  life  at  its  deep  and  hid- 


30  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

den  origin,  all  this  upspringing  of  existence  that 
pushes  toward  the  light  and,  to  your  mind,  is  rush- 
ing to  misfortune  ;  I  ask  you  to  suppress  the  will  to 
live  that  trembles  through  the  immensities  of  space, 
to  suppress  in  short  the  source  of  life.  Can  you  do 
it  ?  No.  Then  leave  us  in  peace.  Since  no  one 
can  hold  life  in  check,  is  it  not  better  to  respect  it 
and  use  it  than  to  go  about  making  other  people 
disgusted  with  it  ?  When  one  knows  that  certain 
food  is  dangerous  to  health,  he  does  not  eat  it,  and 
when  a  certain  fashion  of  thinking  robs  us  of  con- 
fidence, cheerfulness  and  strength,  we  should  reject 
that,  certain  not  only  that  it  is  a  nutriment  noxious 
to  the  mind,  but  also  that  it  is  false.  There  is  no 
truth  for  man  but  in  thoughts  that  are  human,  and 
pessimism  is  inhuman.  Besides,  it  wants  as  much  in 
modesty  as  in  logic.  To  permit  one's  self  to  count 
as  evil  this  prodigious  thing  that  we  call  life,  one 
needs  have  seen  its  very  foundation,  almost  to  have 
made  it.  What  a  strange  attitude  is  that  of  certain 
great  thinkers  of  our  times .'  They  act  as  if  they 
had  created  the  world,  very  long  ago,  in  their  youth, 
but  decidedly  it  was  a  mistake,  and  they  had  well 
repented  it. 

Let    us    nourish    ourselves    from   other    meat ; 


SIMPLICITY   OF  THOUGHT         31 

strengthen  our  souls  with  cheering  thoughts.    What 
is  truest  for  man  is  what  best  fortifies  him. 


IF  mankind  lives  by  confidence,  it  lives  also  by 
hope  —  that  form  of  confidence  which  turns 
toward  the  future.  All  life  is  a  result  and  an 
aspiration,  all  that  exists  supposes  an  origin  and  tends 
toward  an  end.  Life  is  progression  :  progression  is 
aspiration.  The  progress  of  the  future  is  an  infini- 
tude of  hope.  Hope  is  at  the  root  of  things,  and 
must  be  reflected  in  the  heart  of  man.  No  hope,  no 
life.  The  same  power  which  brought  us  into  being, 
urges  us  to  go  up  higher.  What  is  the  meaning  of 
this  persistent  instinct  which  pushes  us  on  ?  The 
true  meaning  is  that  something  is  to  result  from  life, 
that  out  of  it  is  being  wrought  a  good  greater  than 
itself,  toward  which  it  slowly  moves,  and  that  this 
painful  sower  called  man,  needs,  like  every  sower,  to 
count  on  the  morrow.  The  history  of  humanity  is 
the  history  of  indomitable  hope ;  otherwise  every- 
thing would  have  been  over  long  ago.  To  press 
forward  under  his  burdens,  to  guide  himself  in  the 
night,  to  retrieve  his  falls  and  his  failures,  to  escape 
despair  even  in  death,  man  has  need  of  hoping  al- 
ways, and  sometimes  against  all  hope.  Here  is  the 


32  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

cordial  that  sustains  him.  Had  we  only  logic,  we 
should  have  long  ago  drawn  the  conclusion :  Death 
has  everywhere  the  last  word  !  —  and  we  should  be 
dead  of  the  idea.  But  we  have  hope,  and  that  is 
why  we  live  and  believe  in  life. 

Suso,  the  great  monk  and  mystic,  one  of  the  sim- 
plest and  best  men  that  ever  lived,  had  a  touching 
custom  :  whenever  he  encountered  a  woman,  were 
she  the  poorest  and  oldest,  he  stepped  respectfullv 
aside,  though  his  bare  feet  must  tread  among  thorns 
or  in  the  gutter.  "  I  do  that,"  he  said,  "  to  render 
homage  to  our  Holy  Lady,  the  Virgin  Mary."  Let 
us  offer  to  hope  a  like  reverence.  If  we  meet  it  in 
the  shape  of  a  blade  of  wheat  piercing  the  furrow ; 
a  bird  brooding  on  its  nest ;  a  poor  wounded  beast, 
recovering  itself,  rising  and  continuing  its  way;  a 
peasant  ploughing  and  sowing  a  field  that  has  been 
ravaged  by  flood  or  hail ;  a  nation  slowly  repairing 
its  losses  and  healing  its  wounds  -  —  under  whatever 
guise  of  humanity  or  suffering  it  appears  to  us,  let  us 
salute  it !  When  we  encounter  it  in  legends,  in  un- 
tutored songs,  in  simple  creeds,  let  us  still  salute  it .' 
for  it  is  always  the  same,  indestructible,  the  immor- 
tal daughter  of  God. 

We  do  not  dare  hope  enough.     The  men  of  our 


SIMPLICITY   OF  THOUGHT         33 

day  have  developed  strange  timidities.  The  appre- 
hension that  the  sky  will  fall  —  that  acme  of  absurd- 
ity among  the  fears  of  our  Gallic  forefathers — has  en- 
tered our  own  hearts.  Does  the  rain-drop  doubt  the 
ocean?  the  ray  mistrust  the  sun  ?  Our  senile  wisdom 
has  arrived  at  this  prodigy.  It  resembles  those  testy 
old  pedagogues  whose  chief  office  is  to  rail  at  the 
merry  pranks  or  the  youthful  enthusiasms  of  their 
pupils.  It  is  time  to  become  little  children  once 
more,  to  learn  again  to  stand  with  clasped  hands  and 
wide  eyes  before  the  mystery  around  us  ;  to  remem- 
ber that,  in  spite  of  our  knowledge,  what  we  know 
is  but  a  trifle,  and  that  the  world  is  greater  than  our 
mind,  which  is  well ;  for  being  so  prodigious,  it  must 
hold  in  reserve  untold  resources,  and  we  may  allow  it 
some  credit  without  accusing  ourselves  of  improvi- 
dence. Let  us  not  treat  it  as  creditors  do  an  insolv- 
ent debtor :  we  should  fire  its  courage,  relight  the 
sacred  flame  of  hope.  Since  the  sun  still  rises,  since 
earth  puts  forth  her  blossoms  anew,  since  the  bird 
builds  its  nest,  and  the  mother  smiles  at  her  child/ 
let  us  have  the  courage  to  be  men,  and  commit  the 
rest  to  Him  who  has  numbered  the  stars.  For  my 
part,  I  would  I  might  find  glowing  words  to  say  to 
whomsoever  has  lost  heart  in  these  times  of  disillu- 


34  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

sion :  Rouse  your  courage,  hope  on ;  he  is  sure  of 
being  least  deluded  who  has  the  daring  to  do  that ; 
the  most  ingenuous  hope  is  nearer  truth  than  the 
most  rational  despair. 

ANOTHER  source  of  light  on  the  path  of 
human  life  is  goodness.  I  am  not  of  those 
who  believe  in  the  natural  perfection  of 
man.  and  teach  that  society  corrupts  him.  On  the 
contrary,  of  all  forms  of  evil,  the  one  which  most 
dismays  me  is  heredity.  But  I  sometimes  ask  my- 
self how  it  is  that  this  effete  and  deadly  virus  of  low 
instincts,  of  vices  inoculated  in  the  blood,  the 
whole  assemblage  of  disabilities  imposed  upon  us  by 
the  past — how  all  this  has  not  got  the  better  of  us. 
It  must  be  because  of  something  else.  This  other 
thing  is  love. 

Given  the  unknown  brooding  above  our  heads,  our 
limited  intelligence,  the  grievous  and  contradictory 
enigma  of  human  destiny,  falsehood,  hatred,  corrup- 
tion, suffering,  death  —  what  can  we  think,  what  do? 
To  all  these  questions  a  sublime  and  mysterious  voice 
has  answered  :  Love  your  fellow-men.  Love  must  in- 
deed be  divine,  like  faith  and  hope,  since  she  cannot 
die  when  so  many  powers  are  arrayed  against  her. 


SIMPLICITY   OF  THOUGHT         35 

She  has  to  combat  the  natural  ferocity  of  what  may 
be  called  the  beast  in  man ;  she  has  to  meet  ruse, 
force,  self-interest,  above  all,  ingratitude.  How  is  it 
that  she  passes  pure  and  scathless  in  the  midst  of 
these  dark  enemies,  like  the  prophet  of  the  sacred 
legend  among  the  roaring  beasts  ?  It  is  because  her 
enemies  are  of  the  earth,  and  love  is  from  above. 
Horns,  teeth,  claws,  eyes  full  of  murderous  fire,  are 
powerless  against  the  swift  wing  that  soars  toward 
the  heights  and  eludes  them.  Thus  love  escapes 
the  undertakings  of  her  foes.  She  does  even  bet- 
ter :  she  has  sometimes  known  the  fine  triumph  of 
winning  over  her  persecutors:  she  has  seen  the  wild 
beasts  grow  calm,  lie  down  at  her  feet,  obey  her 
law. 

At  the  very  heart  of  the  Christian  faith,  the  most 
sublime  of  its  teachings,  and  to  him  who  penetrates 
its  deepest  sense,  the  most  human,  is  this  :  To  save 
lost  humanity,  the  invisible  God  came  to  dwell 
among  us,  in  the  form  of  a  man,  and  willed  to  make 
Himself  known  by  this  single  sign  :  Love. 

Healing,  consoling,  tender  to  the  unfortunate, 
even  to  the  evil,  love  engenders  light  beneath  her 
feet.  She  clarifies,  she  simplifies.  She  has  chosen 
the  humblest  part  —  to  bind  up  wounds,  wipe  away 


86  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

tears,  relieve  distress,  soothe  aching  hearts,  pardon 
make  peace ;  yet  it  is  of  love  that  we  have  the  great- 
est need.  And  as  we  meditate  on  the  best  way  to 
render  thought  fruitful,  simple,  really  conformable 
to  our  destiny,  the  method  sums  itself  up  in  these 
words:  Have  confidence  and  hope;  be  kind. 

I  would  not  discourage  lofty  speculation,  dissuade 
any  one  whomsoever  from  brooding  over  the  prob- 
lems of  the  unknown,  over  the  vast  abysses  of  sci- 
ence or  philosophy.  But  we  have  always  to  come 
back  from  these  far  journeys  to  the  point  where  we 
are,  often  to  a  place  where  we  seem  to  stand  mark- 
ing time  with  no  result.  There  are  conditions  of 
life  and  social  complications  in  which  the  sage,  the 
thinker,  and  the  ignorant  are  alike  unable  to  see 
clearly.  The  present  age  has  often  brought  us  face 
to  face  with  such  situations  ;  I  am  sure  that  he  who 
meets  them  with  our  method  will  soon  recognize  its 
worth. 

SINCE    I    have   touched    here    upon    religious 
ground,  at  least  in  a  general  way,  someone 
may  ask  me  to  say  in   a  few  simple  words, 
what  religion  is  the  best ;  and  I  gladly  express  my- 
self on  this  subject.     But  it  might  be  better  not  to 


SIMPLICITY    OF   THOUGHT          37 

put  the  question  in  this  form.  All  religions  have, 
of  necessity,  certain  fixed  characteristics,  and  each 
has  its  inherent  qualities  or  defects.  Strictly  speak- 
ing, then,  they  may  be  compared  among  themselves : 
but  there  are  always  involuntary  partialities  or  fore- 
gone conclusions.  It  is  better  to  put  the  question 
otherwise,  and  ask:  Is  my  own  religion  good,  and 
how  may  I  know  it  ?  To  this  question,  this  answer : 
Your  religion  is  good  if  it  is  vital  and  active,  if  it 
nourishes  in  you  confidence,  hope,  love,  and  a  senti- 
ment of  the  infinite  value  of  existence ;  if  it  is  allied 
with  what  is  best  in  you  against  what  is  worst,  and 
holds  forever  before  you  the  necessity  of  becoming  a 
new  man  ;  if  it  makes  you  understand  that  pain  is  a 
deliverer ;  if  it  increases  your  respect  for  the  con- 
science of  others ;  if  it  renders  forgiveness  more 
easy,  fortune  less  arrogant,  duty  more  dear,  the  be- 
yond less  visionary.  If  it  does  these  things  it  is 
good,  little  matter  its  name  :  however  rudimentary 
it  may  be,  when  it  fills  this  office  it  comes  from  the 
true  source,  it  binds  you  to  man  and  to  God. 

But  does  it  perchance  serve  to  make  you  think 
yourself  better  than  others,  quibble  over  texts,  wear 
sour  looks,  domineer  over  other's  consciences  or  give 
your  own  over  to  bondage ;  stifle  your  scruples,  fol- 


38  THE    SIMPLE    LIFE 

low  religious  forms  for  fashion  or  gain,  do  good,  in 
the  hope  of  escaping  future  punishment  ? —  oh,  then, 
if  you  proclaim  yourself  the  follower  of  Buddha, 
Moses,  Mahomet,  or  even  Christ,  your  religion  is 
worthless  —  it  separates  you  from  God  and  man. 

I  have  not  perhaps  the  right  to  speak  thus  in  my 
own  name;  but  others  have  so  spoken  before  me 
who  are  greater  than  I,  and  notably  He  who  re- 
counted to  the  questioning  scribe  the  parable  of  the 
Good  Samaritan.  I  intrench  myself  behind  His  au- 
thority. 


IV 

SIMPLICITY   OF   SPEECH 

SPEECH  is  the  chief  revelation  of  the  mind, 
the  first  visible  form  that  it  takes.     As  the 
thought,  so  the  speech.     To  better  one's  life 
in  the  way  of  simplicity,  one   must   set  a 
watch  on  his  lips  and  his  pen.     Let  the  word  be  as 
genuine  as  the  thought,  as  artless,  as  valid:  think 
justly,  speak  frankly. 

All  social  relations  have  their  roots  in  mutual 
trust,  and  this  trust  is  maintained  by  each  man's 
sincerity.  Once  sincerity  diminishes,  confidence  is 
weakened,  society  suffers,  apprehension  is  born. 
This  is  true  in  the  province  of  both  natural  and 
spiritual  interests.  With  people  whom  we  distrust, 
it  is  as  difficult  to  do  business  as  to  search  for 
scientific  truth,  arrive  at  religious  harmony,  or  attain 
to  justice.  When  one  must  first  question  words 
and  intentions,  and  start  from  the  premise  that 
everything  said  and  written  is  meant  to  offer  us 

illusion   in  place  of  truth,   life  becomes   strangely 
39 


40  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

complicated.  This  is  the  case  to-day.  There  is  so 
much  craft,  so  much  diplomacy,  so  much  subtle 
legerdemain,  that  we  all  have  no  end  of  trouble  to 
inform  ourselves  on  the  simplest  subject  and  the 
one  that  most  concerns  us.  Probably  what  I  have 
just  said  would  suffice  to  show  my  thought,  and  each 
one's  experience  might  bring  to  its  support  an  ample 
commentary  with  illustrations.  But  I  am  none  the 
less  moved  to  insist  on  this  point,  and  to  strengthen 
my  position  with  examples. 

Formerly  the  means  of  communication  between 
men  were  considerably  restricted.  It  was  natural 
to  suppose  that  in  perfecting  and  multiplying  ave- 
nues of  information,  a  better  understanding  would 
be  brought  about.  Nations  would  learn  to  love 
each  other  as  they  became  acquainted ;  citizens  of 
one  country  would  feel  themselves  bound  in  closer 
brotherhood  as  more  light  was  thrown  on  what  con- 
cerned their  common  life.  When  printing  was  in- 
vented, the  cry  arose :  Jiat  lux !  and  with  better 
cause  when  the  habit  of  reading  and  the  taste  for 
newspapers  increased.  Why  should  not  men  have 
reasoned  thus  :  —  "  Two  lights  illumine  better  than 
one,  and  many  better  than  two  :  the  more  period- 
icals and  books  there  are,  the  better  we  shall  know 


SIMPLICITY   OF   SPEECH  41 

what  happens,  and  those  who  wish  to  write  history 
after  us  will  be  right  fortunate  ;  their  hands  will  be 
full  of  documents  "  ?  Nothing  could  have  seemed 
more  evident.  Alas  !  this  reasoning  was  based  upon 
the  nature  and  capacity  of  the  instruments,  without 
taking  into  account  the  human  element,  always  the 
most  important  factor.  And  what  has  really  come 
about  is  this:  that  cavilers,  calumniators,  and  crooks 
—  all  gentlemen  glib  of  tongue,  who  know  better 
than  any  one  else  how  to  turn  voice  and  pen  to  ac- 
count —  have  taken  the  utmost  advantage  of  these 
extended  means  for  circulating  thought,  with  the 
result  that  the  men  of  our  times  have  the  greatest 
difficulty  in  the  world  to  know  the  truth  about  their 
own  age  and  their  own  affairs.  For  every  newspaper 
that  fosters  good  feeling  and  good  understanding 
between  nations,  by  trying  to  rightly  inform  its 
neighbors  and  to  study  them  without  reservations, 
how  many  spread  defamation  and  distrust  J  What  un- 
natural and  dangerous  currents  of  opinion  set  in  mo- 
tion !  what  false  alarms  and  malicious  interpretations 
of  words  and  facts!  And  in  domestic  affairs  we  are  not 
much  better  informed  than  in  foreign.  As  to  com- 
mercial, industrial,  and  agricultural  interests,  political 
parties  and  social  tendencies,  or  the  personality  of 


42  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

public  men,  it  is  alike  difficult  to  obtain  a  disinter- 
ested opinion.  The  more  newspapers  one  reads,  the 
less  clearly  he  sees  in  these  matters.  There  are 
days  when  after  having  read  them  all,  and  admitting 
that  he  takes  them  at  their  word,  the  reader  finds 
himself  obliged  to  draw  this  conclusion  :  —  Unques- 
tionably nothing  but  corruption  can  be  found  any 
longer — no  men  of  integrity  except  a  few  journalists. 
But  the  last  part  of  the  conclusion  falls  in  its  turn. 
It  appears  that  the  chroniclers  devour  each  other. 
The  reader  has  under  his  eyes  a  spectacle  somewhat 
like  the  cartoon  entitled,  "  The  Combat  of  the  Ser. 
pents."  After  having  gorged  themselves  with  every* 
thing  around  them,  the  reptiles  fall  upon  each  other, 
and  there  remain  upon  the  field  of  battle  two  tails 
And  not  the  common  people  alone  feel  this  em. 
barrassment,  but  the  cultivated  also  —  almost  every  > 
body  shares  it.  In  politics,  finance,  business  —  even 
in  science,  art,  literature  and  religion,  there  is  every- 
where disguise,  trickery,  wire-pulling;  one  truth  for 
the  public,  another  for  the  initiated.  The  result  is 
that  everybody  is  deceived.  It  is  vain  to  be  behind 
the  scenes  on  one  stage ;  a  man  cannot  be  there  on 
them  all,  and  the  very  people  who  deceive  others 
with  the  most  ability,  are  in  turn  deceived  when 


SIMPLICITY   OF   SPEECH  43 

they  need  to  count  upon  the  sincerity  of  their  neigh- 
bors. 

The  result  of  such  practices  is  the  degradation 
of  human  speech.  It  is  degraded  first  in  the  eyes 
of  those  who  manipulate  it  as  a  base  instrument. 
No  word  is  respected  by  sophists,  casuists,  and  quib- 
blers,  men  who  are  moved  only  by  a  rage  for  gain- 
ing their  point,  or  who  assume  that  their  interests 
are  alone  worth  considering.  Their  penalty  is  to 
be  forced  to  judge  others  by  the  rule  they  follow 
themselves :  Say  what  profits  and  not  what  is  true. 
They  can  no  longer  take  any  one  seriously — a  sad 
state  of  mind  for  those  who  write  or  teach  '  How 
lightly  must  one  hold  his  readers  and  hearers  to  ap- 
proach them  in  such  an  attitude  !  To  him  who  has 
preserved  enough  honesty,  nothing  is  more  repug- 
nant than  the  careless  irony  of  an  acrobat  of  the 
tongue  or  pen,  who  tries  to  dupe  honest  and  ingen- 
uous men.  On  one  side  openness,  sincerity,  the  de- 
sire to  be  enlightened  ;  on  the  other,  chicanery 
making  game  of  the  public  !  But  he  knows  not,  the 
liar,  how  far  he  is  misleading  himself.  The  capi- 
tal on  which  he  lives  is  confidence,  and  nothing 
equals  the  confidence  of  the  people,  unless  it  be 
their  distrust  when  once  they  find  themselves  be- 


44  THE    SIMPLE    LIFE 

trayed.  They  may  follow  for  a  time  the  exploiters 
of  their  artlessness,  but  then  their  friendly  humor 
turns  to  hate.  Doors  which  stood  wide  open  offer 
an  impassable  front  of  wood,  and  ears  once  attentive 
are  deaf.  And  the  pity  is  that  they  have  closed  not 
to  the  evil  alone,  but  to  the  good.  This  is  the 
crime  of  those  who  distort  and  degrade  speech : 
they  shake  confidence  generally.  We  consider  as 
a  calamity  the  debasement  of  the  currency,  the  low- 
ering of  interest,  the  abolition  of  credit :  —  there  is  a 
misfortune  greater  than  these :  the  loss  of  confi- 
dence, of  that  moral  credit  which  honest  people 
give  one  another,  and  which  makes  speech  circulate 
like  an  authentic  currency.  Away  with  counter- 
feiters, speculators,  rotten  financiers,  for  they  bring 
under  suspicion  even  the  coin  of  the  realm.  Away 
with  the  makers  of  counterfeit  speech,  for  because 
of  them  there  is  no  longer  confidence  in  anyone  or 
anything,  and  what  they  say  and  write  is  not  worth 
a  continental. 

You  see  how  urgent  it  is  that  each  should  guard 
his  lips,  chasten  his  pen,  and  aspire  to  simplicity  of 
speech.  No  more  perversion  of  sense,  circumlocution, 
reticence,  tergiversation !  these  things  serve  only  to 
complicate  and  bewilder.  Be  men ;  speak  the  speech 


SIMPLICITY   OF   SPEECH  45 

of  honor.     An  hour  of  plain-dealing  does  more  for 
the  salvation  of  the  world  than  years  of  duplicity. 

A  WORD  now  about  a  national  bias,  to  those 
who  have  a  veneration  for  diction  and  style. 
Assuredly  there  can  be  no  quarrel  with  the 
taste  for  grace  and  elegance  of  speech.  I  am  of 
opinion  that  one  cannot  say  too  well  what  he  has 
to  say.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  the  things  best 
said  and  best  written  are  most  studied.  Words 
should  serve  the  fact,  and  not  substitute  themselves 
for  it  and  make  it  forgotten  in  its  embellishment. 
The  greatest  things  are  those  which  gain  the  most  by 
being  said  most  simply,  since  thus  they  show  them- 
selves for  what  they  are  :  you  do  not  throw  over  them 
the  veil,  however  transparent,  of  beautiful  discourse, 
nor  that  shadow  so  fatal  to  truth,  called  the  writer's 
vanity.  Nothing  so  strong,  nothing  so  persuasive,  as 
simplicity !  There  are  sacred  emotions,  cruel  griefs, 
splendid  heroisms,  passionate  enthusiasms  that  a 
look,  a  movement,  a  cry  interprets  better  than  beau- 
tifully rounded  periods.  The  most  precious  posses- 
sions of  the  heart  of  humanity  manifest  themselves 
most  simply.  To  be  convincing,  a  thing  must  be 
true,  and  certain  truths  are  more  evident  when  they 


46  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

come  in  the  speech  of  ingenuousness,  even  weak- 
ness, than  when  they  fall  from  lips  too  well  trained, 
or  are  proclaimed  with  trumpets.  And  these  rules 
are  good  for  each  of  us  in  his  every-day  life.  No 
one  can  imagine  what  profit  would  accrue  to  his 
moral  life  from  the  constant  observation  of  this  prin- 
ciple :  Be  sincere,  moderate,  simple  in  the  expres- 
sion of  your  feelings  and  opinions,  in  private  and 
public  alike ;  never  pass  beyond  bounds,  give  out 
faithfully  what  is  within  you,  and  above  all,  watch! 
—  that  is  the  main  thing. 

For  the  danger  in  fine  words  is  that  they  live 
from  a  life  of  their  own.  They  are  servants  of  dis- 
tinction, that  have  kept  their  titles  but  no  longer 
perform  their  functions  —  of  which  royal  courts  offer 
us  example.  You  speak  well,  write  well,  and  all  is 
said.  How  many  people  content  themselves  with 
speaking,  and  believe  that  it  exempts  them  from 
acting !  And  those  who  listen  are  content  with 
having  heard  them.  So  it  sometimes  happens  that  a 
life  may  in  the  end  be  made  up  of  a  few  well-turned 
speeches,  a  few  fine  books,  and  a  few  great  plays. 
As  for  practicing  what  is  so  magisterially  set  forth, 
that  is  the  last  thing  thought  of.  And  if  we  pass 
from  the  world  of  talent  to  spheres  which  the  medi- 


SIMPLICITY    OF   SPEECH  47 

ocre  exploit,  there,  in  a  pell-mell  of  confusion,  we 
see  those  who  think  that  we  are  in  the  world  to  talk 
and  hear  others  talk  —  the  great  and  hopeless  rout 
of  babblers,  of  everything  that  prates,  bawls,  and  per- 
orates and,  after  all,  finds  that  there  isn't  talking 
enough.  They  all  forget  that  those  who  make  the 
least  noise  do  the  most  work.  An  engine  that  ex- 
pends all  its  steam  in  whistling,  has  nothing  left  with 
which  to  turn  wheels.  Then  let  us  cultivate  silence 
All  that  we  can  save  in  noise  we  gain  in  power. 

THESE  reflections  lead  us  to  consider  a 
similar  subject,  also  very  worthy  of  atten- 
tion :  I  mean  what  has  been  called  "  the 
vice  of  the  superlative."  If  we  study  the  inhabi- 
tants of  a  country,  we  notice  differences  of  tem- 
perament, of  which  the  language  shows  signs. 
Here  the  people  are  calm  and  phlegmatic  ;  their 
speech  is  jejune,  lacks  color.  Elsewhere  tempera- 
ments are  more  evenly  balanced ;  one  finds  pre- 
cision, the  word  exactly  fitted  to  the  thing.  But 
farther  on  —  effect  of  the  sun,  the  air,  the  wine  per- 
haps—  hot  blood  courses  in  the  veins,  tempers  are 
excitable,  language  is  extravagant,  and  the  simplest 
things  are  said  in  the  strongest  terms. 


48  THE    SIMPLE    LIFE 

If  the  type  of  speech  varies  with  climate,  it  differs 
also  with  epochs.  Compare  the  language,  written 
or  spoken,  of  our  own  times  with  that  of  certain 
other  periods  of  our  history.  Under  the  old  regime, 
people  spoke  differently  than  at  the  time  of  the 
Revolution,  and  we  have  not  the  same  language  as 
the  men  of  1830,  1848,  or  the  Second  Empire.  In 
general,  language  is  now  characterized  by  greater 
simplicity  :  we  no  longer  wear  perukes,  we  no  longer 
write  in  lace  frills :  but  there  is  one  significant  differ- 
ence between  us  and  almost  all  of  our  ancestors — and 
it  is  the  source  of  our  exaggerations  —  our  nervous- 
ness. Upon  over-excited  nervous  systems  —  and 
Heaven  knows  that  to  have  nerves  is  no  longer  an 
aristocratic  privilege  !  —  words  do  not  produce  the 
same  impression  as  under  normal  conditions.  And 
quite  as  truly,  simple  language  does  not  suffice  the 
man  of  over-wrought  sensibilities  when  he  tries  to 
express  what  he  feels.  In  private  life,  in  public,  in 
books,  on  the  stage,  calm  and  temperate  speech  has 
given  place  to  excess.  The  means  that  novelists  and 
playwrights  employ  to  galvanize  the  public  mind 
and  compel  its  attention,  are  to  be  found  again,  in 
their  rudiments,  in  our  most  commonplace  conversa- 
tions, in  our  letter-writing,  and  above  all  in  public 


SIMPLICITY   OF   SPEECH  49 

speaking.  Our  performances  in  language  compared 
to  those  of  a  man  well-balanced  and  serene,  are 
what  our  hand-writing  is  compared  to  that  of  our 
fathers.  The  fault  is  laid  to  steel  pens.  If  only 
the  truth  were  acknowledged !  —  Geese,  then, 
could  save  us  !  But  the  evil  goes  deeper ;  it  is 
in  ourselves.  We  write  like  men  possessed  :  the 
pen  of  our  ancestors  was  more  restful,  more  sure. 
Here  we  face  one  of  the  results  of  our  modern  life, 
so  complicated  and  so  terribly  exhaustive  of  energy. 
It  leaves  us  impatient,  breathless,  in  perpetual  trepi- 
dation. Our  handwriting,  like  our  speech,  suffers 
thereby  and  betrays  us.  Let  us  go  back  from  the 
effect  to  the  cause,  and  understand  well  the  warning 
it  brings  us  ! 

What  good  can  come  from  this  habit  of  exag- 
gerated speech  ?  False  interpreters  of  our  own  im- 
pressions, we  can  not  but  warp  the  minds  of  our  fel- 
low-men as  well  as  our  own.  Between  people  who 
exaggerate,  good  understanding  ceases.  Ruffled 
tempers,  violent  and  useless  disputes,  hasty  judg- 
ments devoid  of  all  moderation,  the  utmost  extrava- 
gance in  education  and  social  life  —  these  things  are 
the  result  of  intemperance  of  speech. 


50  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

MAY  I  be  permitted,  in  this  appeal  for 
simplicity  of  speech,  to  frame  a  wish 
whose  fulfilment  would  have  the  hap- 
piest results  ?  I  ask  for  simplicity  in  literature,  not 
only  as  one  of  the  best  remedies  for  the  dejection 
of  our  souls — biases,  jaded,  weary  of  eccentricities  — 
but  also  as  a  pledge  and  source  of  social  union. 
I  ask  also  for  simplicity  in  art.  Our  art  and  our 
literature  are  reserved  for  the  privileged  few  of  ed- 
ucation and  fortune.  But  do  not  misunderstand  me. 
I  do  not  ask  poets,  novelists,  and  painters  to  de- 
scend from  the  heights  and  walk  along  the  moun- 
tain-sides, finding  their  satisfaction  in  mediocrity ; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  to  mount  higher.  The  truly 
popular  is  not  that  which  appeals  to  a  certain 
class  of  society  ordinarily  called  the  common  peo- 
ple ;  the  truly  popular  is  what  is  common  to  all 
classes  and  unites  them.  The  sources  of  inspiration 
from  which  perfect  art  springs  are  in  the  depths  of 
the  human  heart,  in  the  eternal  realities  of  life 
before  which  all  men  are  equal.  And  the  sources 
of  a  popular  language  must  be  found  in  the  small 
number  of  simple  and  vigorous  forms  which  ex- 
press elementary  sensations,  and  draw  the  mas- 
ter lines  of  human  destiny.  In  them  are  truth, 


SIMPLICITY    OF   SPEECH  51 

power,  grandeur,  immortality.  Is  there  not  enough 
in  such  an  ideal  to  kindle  the  enthusiasm  of  youth, 
which,  sensible  that  the  sacred  flame  of  the  beautiful 
is  burning  within,  feels  pity,  and  to  the  disdainful 
adage,  Odi  profanum  vulgus,  prefers  this  more  hu- 
mane saying,  Misereor  super  turbam.  As  for  me,  I 
have  no  artistic  authority,  but  from  out  the  multi- 
tude where  I  live,  I  have  the  right  to  raise  my  cry 
to  those  who  have  been  given  talents,  and  say  to 
them :  Labor  for  men  whom  the  world  forgets,  make 
yourselves  intelligible  to  the  humble,  so  shall  you 
accomplish  a  work  of  emancipation  and  peace;  so 
shall  you  open  again  the  springs  whence  those  mas- 
ters drew,  whose  works  have  defied  the  ages  because 
they  knew  how  to  clothe  genius  in  simplicity. 


SIMPLE   DUTY 

WHEN  we  talk  to  children  on  a  sub- 
ject that  annoys  them,  they  call  our 
attention     to    some    pigeon    on    the 
roof,  giving  food  to  its  little  one,  or 
some  coachman  down  in  the  street  who  is  abusing 
his    horse.     Sometimes  they  even   maliciously  pro- 
pose one  of  those  alarming  questions   that  put  the 
minds  of   parents    on   the   rack ;  all   this   to   divert 
attention  from  the  distressing  topic.      I  fear  that  in 
the  face  of  duty  we  are  big  children,  and,  when  that 
is  the  theme,  seek  subterfuges  to  distract  us. 

The  first  sophism  consists  in  asking  ourselves  if 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  duty  in  the  abstract,  or  if 
this  word  does  not  cover  one  of  the  numerous  illu- 
sions of  our  forefathers.  For  duty,  in  truth,  sup- 
poses liberty,  and  the  question  of  liberty  leads  us 
into  metaphysics.  How  can  we  talk  of  liberty  so 
long  as  this  grave  problem  of  free-will  is  not  solved  ? 

Theoretically  there  is  no  objection  to  this ;  and  if 
52 


SIMPLE   DUTY  53 

life  were  a  theory,  and  we  were  here  to  work  out  a 
complete  system  of  the  universe,  it  would  be  absurd 
to  concern  ourselves  with  duty  until  we  had  clarified 
the  subject  of  liberty,  determined  its  conditions, 
fixed  its  limits. 

But  life  is  not  a  theory.  In  this  question  of  prac- 
tical morality,  as  in  the  others,  life  has  preceded 
hypothesis,  and  there  is  no  room  to  believe  that  she 
ever  yields  it  place.  This  liberty — relative,  I  admit, 
like  everything  we  are  acquainted  with,  for  that 
matter  —  this  duty  whose  existence  we  question,  is 
none  the  less  the  basis  of  all  the  judgments  we 
pass  upon  ourselves  and  our  fellow-men.  We  hold 
each  other  to  a  certain  extent  responsible  for  our 
deeds  and  exploits. 

The  most  ardent  theorist,  once  outside  of  his 
theory,  scruples  not  a  whit  to  approve  or  disappi-ove 
the  acts  of  others,  to  take  measures  against  his  ene- 
mies, to  appeal  to  the  generosity  and  justice  of 
those  he  would  dissuade  from  an  unworthy  step. 
One  can  no  more  rid  himself  of  the  notion  of  moral 
obligation  than  of  that  of  time  or  space  ;  and  as 
surely  as  we  must  resign  ourselves  to  walking  before 
we  know  how  to  define  this  space  through  which  we 
move  and  this  time  that  measures  our  movements, 


so  surely  must  we  submit  to  moral  obligation  before 
having  put  our  finger  on  its  deep-hidden  roots. 
Moral  law  dominates  man,  whether  he  respects  or 
defies  it.  See  how  it  is  in  every-day  life :  each  one 
is  ready  to  cast  his  stone  at  him  who  neglects  a 
plain  duty,  even  if  he  allege  that  he  has  not  yet 
arrived  at  philosophic  certitude.  Everybody  will 
say  to  him,  and  with  excellent  reason  :  "  Sir,  we 
are  men  before  everything.  First  play  your  part,  do 
your  duty  as  citizen,  father,  son ;  after  that  you 
shall  return  to  the  course  of  your  meditations." 

However,  let  us  be  well  understood.  We  should 
not  wish  to  turn  anyone  away  from  scrupulous 
research  into  the  foundations  of  morality.  No 
thought  which  leads  men  to  concern  themselves 
once  more  with  these  grave  questions,  could  be 
useless  or  indifferent.  We  simply  challenge  the 
thinker  to  find  a  way  to  wait  till  he  has  unearthed 
these  foundations,  before  he  does  an  act  of  human- 
ity, of  honesty  or  dishonesty,  of  valor  or  cowardice. 
And  most  of  all  do  we  wish  to  formulate  a  reply  for 
all  the  insincere  who  have  never  tried  to  philoso- 
phize, and  for  ourselves  when  we  would  offer  our 
state  of  philosophic  doubt  in  justification  of  our 
practical  omissions.  From  the  simple  fact  that  we 


SIMPLE   DUTY  55 

are  men,  before  all  theorizing,  positive,  or  negative, 
about  duty,  we  have  the  peremptory  law  to  conduct 
ourselves  like  men.  There  is  no  getting  out  of  it. 

But  he  little  knows  the  resources  of  the  human 
heart,  who  counts  on  the  effect  of  such  a  reply.  It 
matters  not  that  it  is  itself  unanswerable  ;  it  cannot 
keep  other  questions  from  arising.  The  sum  of  our 
pretexts  for  evading  duty  is  equal  to  the  sum  of  the 
sands  of  the  sea  or  the  stars  of  heaven. 

We  take  refuge,  then,  behind  duty  that  is  obscure, 
difficult,  contradictory.  And  these  are  certainly 
words  to  call  up  painful  memories.  To  be  a  man  of 
duty  and  to  question  one's  route,  grope  in  the  dark, 
feel  one's  self  torn  between  the  contrary  solicita- 
tions of  conflicting  calls,  or  again,  to  face  a  duty 
gigantic,  overwhelming,  beyond  our  strength  — 
what  is  harder !  And  such  things  happen.  We 
would  neither  deny  nor  contest  the  tragedy  in  cer- 
tain situations  or  the  anguish  of  certain  lives.  And 
yet,  duty  rarely  has  to  make  itself  plain  across  such 
conflicting  circumstances,  or  to  be  struck  out  from 
the  tortured  mind  like  lightning  from  a  storm-cloud. 
Such  formidable  shocks  are  exceptional.  Well  for 
us  if  we  stand  staunch  when  they  come  !  But  if  no 
one  is  astonished  that  oaks  are  uprooted  by  the 


56  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

whirlwind,  that  a  wayfarer  stumbles  at  night  on  an 
unknown  road,  or  that  a  soldier  caught  between  two 
fires  is  vanquished,  no  more  should  he  condemn 
without  appeal  those  who  have  been  worsted  in 
almost  superhuman  moral  conflicts.  To  succumb 
under  the  force  of  numbers  or  obstacles  has  never 
been  counted  a  disgrace. 

So  my  weapons  are  at  the  service  of  those  who 
intrench  themselves  behind  the  impregnable  ram- 
part of  duty  ill-defined,  complicated  or  contradictory. 
But  it  is  not  that  which  occupies  me  to-day  ;  it  is 
of  plain,  I  had  almost  said  easy  duty,  that  I  wish 
to  speak. 

WE  have  yearly  three  or  four  high  feast 
days, .  and  many  ordinary  ones :  there 
are  likewise  some  very  great  and  dark 
combats  to  wage,  but  beside  these  is  the  multitude 
of  plain  and  simple  duties.  Now,  while  in  the 
great  encounters  our  equipment  is  generally  ade- 
quate, it  is  precisely  in  the  little  emergencies  that 
we  are  found  wanting.  Without  fear  of  being  mis- 
led by  a  paradoxical  form  of  thought,  I  affirm,  then, 
that  the  essential  thing  is  to  fulfil  our  simple  duties 
and  exercise  elementary  justice.  In  general,  those 


SIMPLE   DUTY  57 

who  lose  their  souls  do  so  not  because  they  fail  to 
rise  to  difficult  duty,  but  because  they  neglect  to 
perform  that  which  is  simple.  Let  us  illustrate  this 
truth. 

He  who  tries  to  penetrate  into  the  humble  under- 
world of  society  is  not  slow  to  discover  great  misery, 
physical  and  moral.  And  the  closer  he  looks,  the 
greater  number  of  unfortunates  does  he  discover,  till 
in  the  end  this  assembly  of  the  wretched  appears  to 
him  like  a  great  black  world,  in  whose  presence  the 
individual  and  his  means  of  relief  are  reduced  to 
helplessness.  It  is  true  that  he  feels  impelled  to 
run  to  the  succor  of  these  unfortunates,  but  at  the 
same  time  he  asks  himself,  "  What  is  the  use  ? " 
The  case  is  certainly  heartrending.  Some,  in  despair, 
end  by  doing  nothing.  They  lack  neither  pity  nor 
good  intention,  but  these  bear  no  fruit.  They  are 
wrong.  Often  a  man  has  not  the  means  to  do  good 
on  a  large  scale,  but  that  is  not  a  reason  for  failing 
to  do  it  at  all.  So  many  people  absolve  themselves 
from  any  action,  on  the  ground  that  there  is  too 
much  to  do!  They  should  be  recalled  to  simple 
duty,  and  this  duty  in  the  case  of  which  we  speak 
is  that  each  one,  according  to  his  resources,  leisure 
and  capacity,  should  create  relations  for  himself  among 


58  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

the  world's  disinherited.  There  are  people  who  by 
the  exercise  of  a  little  good-will  have  succeeded  in  en- 
rolling themselves  among  the  followers  of  ministers, 
and  have  ingratiated  themselves  with  princes.  Why 
should  you  not  succeed  in  forming  relations  with 
the  poor,  and  in  making  acquaintances  among  the 
workers  who  lack  somewhat  the  necessities  of  life  ? 
When  a  few  families  are  known,  with  their  histories, 
their  antecedents  and  their  difficulties,  you  may  be 
of  the  greatest  use  to  them  by  acting  the  part  of  a 
brother,  with  the  moral  and  material  aid  that  is  yours 
to  give.  It  is  true,  you  will  have  attacked  only  one 
little  corner,  but  you  will  have  done  what  you 
could,  and  perhaps  have  led  another  on  to  follow 
you.  Instead  of  stopping  at  the  knowledge  that 
much  wretchedness,  hatred,  disunion  and  vice  exist 
in  society,  you  will  have  introduced  a  little  good 
among  these  evils.  And  by  however  slow  degrees 
such  kindness  as  yours  is  emulated,  the  good  will 
sensibly  increase  and  the  evil  diminish.  Even  were 
you  to  remain  alone  in  this  undertaking,  you  would 
have  the  assurance  that  in  fulfilling  the  duty,  plain 
as  a  child's,  which  offered  itself,  you  were  doing  the 
only  reasonable  thing.  If  you  have  felt  it  so,  you 
have  found  out  one  of  the  secrets  of  right  living. 


SIMPLE   DUTY  59 

In  its  dreams,  man's  ambition  embraces  vast 
limits,  but  it  is  rarely  given  us  to  achieve  great 
things,  and  even  then,  a  quick  and  sure  success 
always  rests  on  a  groundwork  of  patient  preparation. 
Fidelity  in  small  things  is  at  the  base  of  every  great 
achievement.  We  too  often  forget  this,  and  yet 
no  truth  needs  more  to  be  kept  in  mind,  particularly 
in  the  troubled  eras  of  history  and  in  the  crises  of 
individual  life.  In  shipwreck  a  splintered  beam,  an 
oar,  any  scrap  of  wreckage,  saves  us.  On  the  tum- 
bling waves  of  life,  when  everything  seems  shat- 
tered to  fragments,  let  us  not  forget  that  a  single  one 
of  these  poor  bits  may  become  our  plank  of  safety. 
To  despise  the  remnants  is  demoralization. 

You  are  a  ruined  man,  or  you  are  stricken  by  a 
great  bereavement,  or  again,  you  see  the  fruit  oi 
toilsome  years  perish  before  your  eyes.  You  can- 
not rebuild  your  fortune,  raise  the  dead,  recover 
your  lost  toil,  and  in  the  face  of  the  inevitable, 
your  arms  drop.  Then  you  neglect  to  care  for  your 
person,  to  keep  your  house,  to  guide  your  children. 
All  this  is  pardonable,  and  how  easy  to  understand  ! 
But  it  is  exceedingly  dangerous.  To  fold  one's 
hands  and  let  things  take  their  course,  is  to  trans- 
form one  evil  into  worse.  You  who  think  that  you. 


60  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

have  nothing  left  to  lose,  will  by  that  very  thought 
lose  what  you  have.  Gather  up  the  fragments  that 
remain  to  you,  and  keep  them  with  scrupulous  care. 
In  good  time  this  little  that  is  yours  will  be  your 
consolation.  The  effort  made  will  come  to  your 
relief,  as  the  effort  missed  will  turn  against  you.  If 
nothing  but  a  branch  is  left  for  you  to  cling  to, 
cling  to  that  branch ;  and  if  you  stand  alone  in 
defense  of  a  losing  cause,  do  not  throw  down  your 
arms  to  join  the  rout.  After  the  deluge  a  few  sur- 
vivors repeopled  the  earth.  The  future  sometimes 
rests  in  a  single  life  as  truly  as  life  sometimes  hangs 
by  a  thread.  For  strength,  go  to  history  and  Nature. 
From  the  long  travail  of  both  you  will  learn  that 
failure  and  fortune  alike  may  come  from  the  slight- 
est cause,  that  it  is  not  wise  to  neglect  detail,  and, 
above  all,  that  we  must  know  how  to  wait  and  to 
begin  again. 

In  speaking  of  simple  duty  I  cannot  help  think- 
ing of  military  life,  and  the  examples  it  offers  to 
combatants  in  this  great  struggle.  He  would  little 
understand  his  soldier's  duty  who,  the  army  once 
beaten,  should  cease  to  brush  his  garments,  polish 
his  rifle,  and  observe  discipline.  "  But  what  would 
be  the  use?"  perhaps  you  ask.  Are  there  not  vari- 


SIMPLE   DUTY  61 

ous  fashions  of  being  vanquished  ?  Is  it  an  indif- 
ferent matter  to  add  to  defeat,  discouragement,  dis- 
order, and  demoralization  ?  No,  it  should  never  be 
forgotten  that  the  least  display  of  energy  in  these 
terrible  moments  is  a  sign  of  life  and  hope.  At 
once  everybody  feels  that  all  is  not  lost. 

During  the  disastrous  retreat  of  1813-1814,  in 
the  heart  of  the  winter,  when  it  had  become  almost 
impossible  to  present  any  sort  of  appearance,  a  gen- 
eral, I  know  not  who,  one  morning  presented  him- 
self to  Napoleon,  in  full  dress  and  freshly  shaven. 
Seeing  him  thus,  in  the  midst  of  the  general  de- 
moralization, as  elaborately  attired  as  if  for  parade, 
the  Emperor  said  :  My  general,  you  are  a  brave  man  ! 

AGAIN,  the  plain  duty  is  the  near  duty.     A 
very  common  weakness  keeps  many  peo- 
ple from  finding  what  is  near  them  inter- 
esting ;  they  see  that  only  on  its  paltry  side.     The 
distant,  on  the  contrary,  draws  and  fascinates  them. 
In  this  way  a  fabulous  amount  of  good- will  is  wasted. 
People  burn  with  ardor  for  humanity,  for  the  pub- 
lic   good,  for   righting    distant  wrongs  ;    they  walk 
through  life,  their  eyes  fixed  on  marvelous  sights 
along   the  horizon,  treading  meanwhile  on   the  feet 


62  THE   SIMPLE    LIFE 

of  passers-by,  or  jostling  them  without  being  aware 
of  their  existence. 

Strange  infirmity,  that  keeps  us  from  seeing  our 
fellows  at  our  very  doors  !  People  widely  read  and 
far-travelled  are  often  not  acquainted  with  their 
fellow-citizens,  great  or  small.  Their  lives  depend 
upon  the  cooperation  of  a  multitude  of  beings 
whose  lot  remains  to  them  quite  indifferent.  Not 
those  to  whom  they  owe  their  knowledge  and  cul- 
ture, not  their  rulers,  nor  those  who  serve  them  and 
supply  their  needs,  have  ever  attracted  their  atten- 
tion. That  there  is  ingratitude  or  improvidence  in 
not  knowing  one's  workmen,  one's  servants,  all  those 
in  short  with  whom  one  has  indispensable  social  re- 
lations—  this  has  never  come  into  their  minds. 
Others  go  much  farther.  To  certain  wives,  their 
husbands  are  strangers,  and  conversely.  There  are 
parents  who  do  not  know  their  children :  their 
development,  their  thoughts,  the  dangers  they  run, 
the  hopes  they  cherish,  are  to  them  a  closed  book. 
Many  children  do  not  know  their  parents,  have  no 
suspicion  of  their  difficulties  and  struggles,  no  con- 
ception of  their  aims.  And  I  am  not  speaking  of 
those  piteously  disordered  homes  where  all  the  rela- 
tions are  false,  but  of  honorable  families.  Only, 


SIMPLE   DUTY  63 

all  these  people  are  greatly  preoccupied :  each  has 
his  outside  interest  that  fills  all  his  time.  The  dis- 
tant duty  —  very  attractive,  I  don't  deny  —  claims 
them  entirely,  and  they  are  not  conscious  of  the 
duty  near  at  hand.  I  fear  they  will  have  their 
trouble  for  their  pains.  Each  person's  base  of 
operations  is  the  field  of  his  immediate  duty. 
Neglect  this  field,  and  all  you  undertake  at  a  dis- 
tance is  compromised.  First,  then,  be  of  your  own 
country,  your  own  city,  your  own  home,  your  own 
church,  your  own  work-shop ;  then,  if  you  can,  set 
out  from  this  to  go  beyond  it.  That  is  the  plain 
and  natural  order,  and  a  man  must  fortify  himself 
with  very  bad  reasons  to  arrive  at  reversing  it.  At 
all  events,  the  result  of  so  strange  a  confusion  of 
duties  is  that  many  people  employ  their  time  in 
all  sorts  of  affairs  except  those  in  which  we  have  a 
right  to  demand  it.  Each  is  occupied  with  some- 
thing else  than  what  concerns  him,  is  absent  from 
his  post,  ignores  his  trade.  This  is  what  compli- 
cates life.  And  it  would  be  so  simple  for  each  one 
to  be  about  his  own  matter. 


64  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

ANOTHER   form   of  simple   duty.       When 
damage   is   done,  who   should    repair   it? 
He  who  did   it.     This  is  just,   but  it  is 
only  theory,  and  the    consequence  of  following  the 
theory  would  be  the  evil  in  force  until  the  malefac- 
tors were   found    and   had  offset  it.     But  suppose 
they  are  not  found  ?  or  suppose  they  can  not  or  will 
not  make  amends  ? 

The  rain  falls  on  your  head  through  a  hole  in  the 
roof,  or  the  wind  blows  in  at  a  broken  window.  Will 
you  wait  to  find  the  man  who  caused  the  mischief? 
You  would  certainly  think  that  absurd.  And  yet 
such  is  often  the  practice.  Children  indignantly 
protest,  "I  didn't  put  it  there,  and  I  shall  not  take 
it  away !  "  And  most  men  reason  after  the  same 
fashion.  It  is  logic.  But  it  is  not  the  kind  of  logic 
that  makes  the  world  move  forward. 

On  the  contrary,  what  we  must  learn,  and  what 
life  repeats  to  us  daily,  is  that  the  injury  done  by 
one  must  be  repaired  by  another.  One  tears  down, 
another  builds  up  ;  one  defaces,  another  restores  ; 
one  stirs  up  quarrels,  another  appeases  them ;  one 
makes  tears  to  flow,  another  wipes  them  away  ;  one 
lives  for  evil-doing,  another  dies  for  the  right.  And 
in  the  workings  of  this  grievous  law  lies  salvation. 


SIMPLE   DUTY  65 

This  also  is  logic,  but  a  logic  of  facts  which  makes 
the  logic  of  theories  pale.  The  conclusion  of  the 
matter  is  not  doubtful  ;  a  single-hearted  man  draws 
it  thus  :  given  the  evil,  the  great  thing  is  to  make 
it  good,  and  to  set  about  it  on  the  spot ;  well  indeed 
if  Messrs,  the  Malefactors  will  contribute  to  the 
reparation  ;  but  experience  warns  us  not  to  count 
too  much  on  their  aid. 

BUT  however  simple  duty  may  be,  there  is 
still  need  of  strength  to  do  it.  In  what 
does  this  strength  consist,  or  where  is  it 
found  ?  One  could  scarcely  tire  of  asking.  Duty 
is  for  man  an  enemy  and  an  intruder,  so  long  as  it 
appears  as  an  appeal  from  without.  When  it  comes 
in  through  the  door,  he  leaves  by  the  window  ; 
when  it  blocks  up  the  windows,  he  escapes  by  the 
roof.  The  more  plainly  we  see  it  coming,  the  more 
surely  we  flee.  It  is  like  those  police,  representa- 
tives of  public  order  and  official  justice,  whom  an 
adroit  thief  succeeds  in  evading.  Alas  !  the  officer, 
though  he  finally  collar  the  thief,  can  only  conduct 
him  to  the  station,  not  along  the  right  road. 
Before  man  is  able  to  accomplish  his  duty,  he  must 
fall  into  the  hands  of  another  power  than  that  which 


66  THE   SIMPLE    LIFE 

says,    "  Do  this,  do  that ;  shun  this,  shun  that,  or 
else  beware  !  " 

This  is  an  interior  power  ;  it  is  love.  When  a  man 
hates  his  work,  or  goes  about  it  with  indifference,  all 
the  forces  of  earth  cannot  make  him  follow  it  with 
enthusiasm.  But  he  who  loves  his  office  moves  of 
himself;  not  only  is  it  needless  to  compel  him,  but 
it  would  be  impossible  to  turn  him  aside.  And  this 
is  true  of  everybody.  The  great  thing  is  to  have 
felt  the  sanctity  and  immortal  beauty  in  our  obscure 
destiny ;  to  have  been  led  by  a  series  of  experiences 
to  love  this  life  for  its  griefs  and  its  hopes,  to  love 
men  for  their  weakness  and  their  greatness,  and  to 
belong  to  humanity  through  the  heart,  the  intelli- 
gence and  the  soul.  Then  an  unknown  power  takes 
possession  of  us,  as  the  wind  of  the  sails  of  a  ship, 
and  bears  us  toward  pity  and  justice.  And  yielding 
to  its  irresistible  impulse,  we  say  :  /  cannot  help  it, 
something  is  there  stronger  than  /.  In  so  saying,  the 
men  of  all  times  and  places  have  designated  a 
power  that  is  above  humanity,  but  which  may  dwel) 
in  men's  hearts.  And  everything  truly  lofty  within 
us  appears  to  us  as  a  manifestation  of  this  mystery 
beyond.  Noble  feelings,  like  great  thoughts  and 
deeds,  are  things  of  inspiration.  When  the  tree 


SIMPLE   DUTY  67 

buds  and  bears  fruit,  it  is  because  it  draws  vital 
forces  from  the  soil,  and  receives  light  and  warmth 
from  the  sun.  If  a  man,  in  his  humble  sphere,  in 
the  midst  of  the  ignorance  and  faults  that  are  his 
inevitably,  consecrates  himself  sincerely  to  his  task, 
it  is  because  he  is  in  contact  with  the  eternal  source 
of  goodness.  This  central  force  manifests  itself  un- 
der a  thousand  forms.  Sometimes  it  is  indomitable 
energy ;  sometimes  winning  tenderness  ;  sometimes 
the  militant  spirit  that  grasps  and  uproots  the  evil ; 
sometimes  maternal  solicitude,  gathering  to  its  arms 
from  the  wayside  where  it  was  perishing,  some 
bruised  and  forgotten  life  ;  sometimes  the  humble 
patience  of  long  research.  All  that  it  touches  bears 
its  seal,  and  the  men  it  inspires  know  that  through 
it  we  live  and  have  our  being.  To  serve  it  is  their 
pleasure  and  reward.  They  are  satisfied  to  be  its 
instruments,  and  they  no  longer  look  at  the  outward 
glory  of  their  office,  well  knowing  that  nothing  is 
great,  nothing  small,  but  that  our  life  and  our  deeds 
are  only  of  worth  because  of  the  spirit  which  breathes 
through  them. 


VI 

SIMPLE   NEEDS 

WHEN  we  buy  a  bird  of  the  fancier, 
the  good  man  tells  us  briefly  what  is 
necessary     for    our     new    pensioner, 
and     the     whole     thing  —  hygiene, 
food,  and  the  rest  —  is  comprehended   in  a    dozen 
words.     Likewise,  to  sum  up  the  necessities  of  most 
men,  a  few   concise    lines    would    answer.       Their 
re'gime  is  in  general  of  supreme  simplicity,  and  so 
long  as  they  follow  it,  all  is  well  with  them,  as  with 
every  obedient  child  of  Mother  Nature.     Let  them 
depart    from    it,    complications    arise,    health     fails, 
gayety  vanishes.     Only  simple  and  natural  living  can 
keep  a  body  in  full  vigor.     Instead  of  remembering 
this  basic  principle,  we  fall  into  the  strangest  aber- 
rations. 

What  material  things  does  a  man  need  to  live 
under  the  best  conditions  ?  A  healthful  diet,  simple 
clothing,  a  sanitary  dwelling-place,  air  and  exercise. 

I  am  not  going  to  enter  into  hygienic  details,  com- 
68 


SIMPLE   NEEDS  69 

pose  menus,  or  discuss  model  tenements  and  dress 
reform.  My  aim  is  to  point  out  a  direction  and 
tell  what  advantage  would  come  to  each  of  us  from 
ordering  his  life  in  a  spirit  of  simplicity.  To  know 
that  this  spirit  does  not  rule  in  our  society  we  need 
but  watch  the  lives  of  men  of  all  classes.  Ask 
different  people,  of  very  unlike  surroundings,  this 
question  :  What  do  you  need  to  live  ?  You  will 
see  how  they  respond.  Nothing  is  more  instructive. 
For  some  aboriginals  of  the  Parisian  asphalt,  there 
is  no  life  possible  outside  a  region  bounded  by  cer- 
tain boulevards.  There  one  finds  the  respirable  air, 
the  illuminating  light,  normal  heat,  classic  cookery, 
and,  in  moderation,  so  many  other  things  without 
which  it  would  not  be  worth  the  while  to  prom- 
enade this  round  ball. 

On  the  various  rungs  of  the  bourgeois  ladder 
people  reply  to  the  question,  what  is  necessary  to 
live  ?  by  figures  varying  with  the  degree  of  their 
ambition  or  education :  and  by  education  is  oftenest 
understood  the  outward  customs  of  life,  the  style  of 
house,  dress,  table  —  an  education  precisely  skin- 
deep.  Upward  from  a  certain  income,  fee,  or  salary, 
life  becomes  possible :  below  that  it  is  impossible. 
We  have  seen  men  commit  suicide  because  their 


70  THE    SIMPLE    LIFE 

means  had  fallen  under  a  certain  minimum.  They 
preferred  to  disappear  rather  than  retrench.  Ob- 
serve that  this  minimum,  the  cause  of  their  despair, 
would  have  been  sufficient  for  others  of  less  exact- 
ing needs,  and  enviable  to  men  whose  tastes  are 
modest. 

On  lofty  mountains  vegetation  changes  with  the 
altitude.  There  is  the  region  of  ordinary  flora,  that 
of  the  forests,  tl.at  o*"  pastures,  that  of  bare  rocks 
and  glaciers.  Above  a  certain  zone  wheat  is  no 
longer  found,  but  the  vine  still  prospers.  The  oak 
ceases  in  the  low  regions,  the  pine  flourishes  at  con- 
siderable heights.  Human  life,  with  its  needs,  re- 
minds one  of  these  phenomena  of  vegetation. 

At  a  certain  altitude  of  fortune  the  financier 
thrives,  the  club-man,  the  society  woman,  all  those 
in  short  for  whom  the  strictly  necessary  includes  a 
certain  number  of  domestics  and  equipages,  as  well 
as  several  town  and  country  houses.  Further  on 
flourishes  the  rich  upper. middle  class,  with  its  own 
standards  and  life.  In  other  regions  we  find  men 
of  ample,  moderate,  or  small  means,  and  very  unlike 
exigencies.  Then  come  the  people  —  artisans,  day- 
laborers,  peasants,  in  short,  the  masses,  who  live 
dense  and  serried  like  the  thick,  sturdy  growths  on 


SIMPLE    NEEDS  71 

the  summits  of  the  mountains,  where  the  larger 
vegetation  can  no  longer  find  nourishment.  In  all 
these  different  regions  of  society  men  live,  and  no 
matter  in  which  particular  regions  they  flourish,  all 
are  alike  human  beings,  bearing  the  same  mark. 
How  strange  that  among  fellows  there  should  be 
such  a  prodigious  difference  in  requirements  !  And 
here  the  analogies  of  our  comparison  fail  us.  Plants 
and  animals  of  the  same  families  have  identical 
wants.  In  human  life  we  observe  quite  the  con- 
trary. What  conclusion  shall  we  draw  from  this,  if 
not  that  with  us  there  is  a  considerable  elasticity 
in  the  nature  and  number  of  needs  ? 

Is  it  well,  is  it  favorable  to  the  development  of 
the  individual  and  his  happiness,  and  to  the  devel- 
opment and  happiness  of  society,  that  man  should 
have  a  multitude  of  needs,  and  bend  his  energies  to 
their  satisfaction  ?  Let  us  return  for  a  moment  to 
our  comparison  with  inferior  beings.  Provided  that 
their  essential  wants  are  satisfied,  they  live  content. 
Is  this  true  of  men  ?  No.  In  all  classes  of  society 
we  find  discontent.  I  leave  completely  out  of  the 
question  those  who  lack  the  necessities  of  life.  One 
cannot  with  justice  count  in  the  number  of  mal- 
contents those  from  whom  hunger,  cold,  and  misery 


72  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

wring  complaints.  I  am  considering  now  that  mul- 
titude of  people  who  live  under  conditions  at  least 
supportable.  Whence  comes  their  heart-burning  ? 
Why  is  it  found  not  only  among  those  of  modest 
though  sufficient  means,  but  also  under  shades  of 
ever-increasing  refinement,  all  along  the  ascending 
scale,  even  to  opulence  and  the  summits  of  social 
place?  They  talk  of  the  contented  middle  classes. 
Who  talk  of  them  ?  People  who,  judging  from  with- 
out, think  that  as  soon  as  one  begins  to  enjoy  ease  he 
ought  to  be  satisfied.  But  the  middle  classes  them- 
selves—  do  they  consider  themselves  satisfied  ?  Not 
the  least  in  the  world.  If  there  are  people  at  once 
rich  and  content,  be  assured  that  they  are  content  be- 
cause they  know  how  to  be  so,  not  because  they  are 
rich.  An  animal  is  satisfied  when  it  has  eaten  ;  it 
lies  down  and  sleeps.  A  man  also  can  lie  down  and 
sleep  for  a  time,  but  it  never  lasts.  When  he  be- 
comes accustomed  to  this  contentment,  he  tires  of  it 
and  demands  a  greater.  Man's  appetite  is  not  ap- 
peased by  food ;  it  increases  with  eating.  This  may 
seem  absurd,  but  it  is  strictly  true. 

And  the  fact  that  those  who  make  the  most  out- 
cry are  almost  always  those  who  should  find  the 
best  reasons  for  contentment,  proves  unquestionably 


SIMPLE    NEEDS  73 

that  happiness  is  not  allied  to  the  number  of  our 
needs  and  the  zeal  we  put  into  their  cultivation.  It 
is  for  everyone's  interest  to  let  this  truth  sink  deep 
into  his  mind.  If  it  does  not,  if  he  does  not  by 
decisive  action  succeed  in  limiting  his  needs,  he 
risks  a  descent,  insensible  and  beyond  retreat,  along 
the  declivity  of  desire. 

He  who  lives  to  eat,  drink,  sleep,  dress,  take  his 
walk, — in  short,  pamper  himself  all  that  he  can  —  be 
it  the  courtier  basking  in  the  sun,  the  drunken 
laborer,  the  commoner  serving  his  belly,  the  woman 
absorbed  in  her  toilettes,  the  profligate  of  low  estate 
or  high,  or  simply  the  ordinary  pleasure-lover,  a 
"  good  fellow,"  but  too  obedient  to  material  needs 
—  that  man  or  woman  is  on  the  downward  way  of 
desire,  and  the  descent  is  fatal.  Those  who  follow 
it  obey  the  same  laws  as  a  body  on  an  inclined 
plane.  Dupes  of  an  illusion  forever  repeated,  they 
think :  "  Just  a  few  steps  more,  the  last,  toward  the 
thing  down  there  that  we  covet;  then  we  will  halt." 
But  the  velocity  they  gain  sweeps  them  on,  and  the 
further  they  go  the  less  able  they  are  to  resist  it. 

Here  is  the  secret  of  the  unrest,  the  madness,  of 
many  of  our  contemporaries.  Having  condemned 
their  will  to  the  service  of  their  appetites,  they 


74  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

suffer  the  penalty.  They  are  delivered  up  to  violent 
passions  which  devour  their  flesh,  crush  their  bones, 
suck  their  blood,  and  cannot  be  sated.  This  is  not 
a  lofty  moral  denunciation.  I  have  been  listening 
to  what  life  says,  and  have  recorded,  as  I  heard 
them,  some  of  the  truths  that  resound  in  every 
square. 

Has  drunkenness,  inventive  as  it  is  of  new  drinks, 
found  the  means  of  quenching  thirst  ?  Not  at  all. 
It  might  rather  be  called  the  art  of  making  thirst 
inextinguishable.  Frank  I'bertinage,  does  it  deaden 
the  sting  of  the  senses  ?  No ;  it  envenoms  it,  con- 
verts natural  desire  into  a  morbid  obsession  and 
makes  it  the  dominant  passion.  Let  your  needs 
rule  you,  pamper  them  —  you  will  see  them  multi- 
ply like  insects  in  the  sun.  The  more  you  give 
them,  the  more  they  demand.  He  is  senseless  who 
seeks  for  happiness  in  material  prosperity  alone. 
As  well  undertake  to  fill  the  cask  of  the  Danaides. 
To  those  who  have  millions,  millions  are  wanting ; 
to  those  who  have  thousands,  thousands.  Others 
lack  a  twenty-franc  piece  or  a  hundred  sous.  When 
they  have  a  chicken  in  the  pot,  they  ask  for  a 
goose  ;  when  they  have  the  goose,  they  wish  it  were 
a  turkey,  and  so  on.  We  shall  never  learn  how 


SIMPLE    NEEDS  75 

fatal  this  tendency  is.  There  are  too  many  humble 
people  who  wish  to  imitate  the  great,  too  many  poor 
working-men  who  ape  the  well-to-do  middle  classes, 
too  many  shop-girls  who  play  at  being  ladies,  too 
many  clerks  who  act  the  club-man  or  sportsman ; 
and  among  those  in  easy  circumstances  and  the  rich, 
are  too  many  people  who  forget  that  what  they 
possess  could  serve  a  better  purpose  than  procuring 
pleasure  for  themselves,  only  to  find  in  the  end 
that  one  never  has  enough.  Our  needs,  in  place  of 
the  servants  that  they  should  be,  have  become  a 
turbulent  and  seditious  crowd,  a  legion  of  tyrants 
in  miniature.  A  man  enslaved  to  his  needs  may 
best  be  compared  to  a  bear  with  a  ring  in  its  nose, 
that  is  led  about  and  made  to  dance  at  will.  The 
likeness  is  not  flattering,  but  you  will  grant  that  it 
is  true.  It  is  in  the  train  of  their  own  needs  that 
so  many  of  those  men  are  dragged  along  who  rant 
for  liberty,  progress,  and  I  don't  know  what  else. 
They  cannot  take  a  step  without  asking  them- 
selves if  it  might  not  irritate  their  masters.  How 
many  men  and  women  have  gone  on  and  on,  even 
to  dishonesty,  for  the  sole  reason  that  they  had  too 
many  needs  and  could  not  resign  themselves  to 
simple  living  !  There  are  many  guests  in  the  chain- 


76  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

bers  of  Mazas  who  could  give  us  much  light  on  the 
subject  of  too  exigent  needs. 

Let  me  tell  you  the  story  of  an  excellent  man 
whom  I  knew.  He  tenderly  loved  his  wife  and 
children,  and  they  all  lived  together,  in  France,  in 
comfort  and  plenty,  but  with  little  of  the  luxury 
the  wife  coveted.  Always  short  of  money,  though 
with  a  little  management  he  might  have  been  at 
ease,  he  ended  by  exiling  himself  to  a  distant 
colony,  leaving  his  wife  and  children  in  the  mother 
country.  I  don't  know  how  the  poor  man  can 
feel  off  there  ;  but  his  family  has  a  finer  apartment, 
more  beautiful  toilettes,  and  what  passes  for  an 
equipage.  At  present  they  are  perfectly  contented, 
but  soon  they  will  be  used  to  this  luxury  —  rudi- 
mentary after  all.  Then  Madam  will  find  her  furni- 
ture common  and  her  equipage  mean.  If  this  man 
loves  his  wife  —  and  that  cannot  be  doubted  —  he 
will  migrate  to  the  moon  if  there  is  hope  of  a  larger 
stipend.  In  other  cases  the  roles  are  reversed,  and 
the  wife  and  children  are  sacrificed  to  the  ravenous 
needs  of  the  head  of  the  family,  whom  an  irregular 
life,  play,  and  countless  other  costly  follies  have 
robbed  of  all  dignity.  Between  his  appetites  and 
his  role  of  father  he  has  decided  for  the  former, 


SIMPLE   NEEDS  77 

and    he    slowly    drifts    toward    the    most    abject 
egoism. 

This  forgetfulness  of  all  responsibility,  this 
gradual  benumbing  of  noble  feeling,  is  not  alone  to 
be  found  among  pleasure-seekers  of  the  upper 
classes  :  the  people  also  are  infected.  I  know  more 
than  one  little  household,  which  ought  to  be  happy, 
where  the  mother  has  only  pain  and  heartache  day 
and  night,  the  children  are  barefoot,  and  there  is 
great  ado  for  bread.  Why  ?  Because  too  much 
money  is  needed  by  the  father.  To  speak  only  of 
the  expenditure  for  alcohol,  everybody  knows  the 
proportions  that  has  reached  in  the  last  twenty  years. 
The  sums  swallowed  up  in  this  gulf  are  fabulous  — 
twice  the  indemnity  of  the  war  of  1870.  How 
many  legitimate  needs  could  have  been  satisfied 
with  that  which  has  been  thrown  away  on  these 
artificial  ones  !  The  reign  of  wants  is  by  no  means 
the  reign  of  brotherhood.  The  more  things  a  man 
desires  for  himself,  the  less  he  can  do  for  his  neigh- 
bor, and  even  for  those  attached  to  him  by  ties  of 
blood. 


78  THE    SIMPLE    LIFE 

THE  destruction  of  happiness,  independ- 
ence, moral  fineness,  even  of  the  senti- 
ment of  common  interests  —  such  is  the 
result  of  the  reign  of  needs.  .\  multitude  of  other 
unfortunate  things  might  be  added,  of  which  not 
the  least  is  the  disturbance  of  the  public  welfare. 
When  society  has  too  great  needs,  it  is  absorbed 
with  the  present,  sacrifices  to  it  the  conquests  of  the 
past,  immolates  to  it  the  future.  After  us  the 
deluge !  To  raze  the  forests  in  order  to  get  gold  ; 
to  squander  your  patrimony  in  youth,  destroying  in  a 
day  the  fruit  of  long  years ;  to  warm  your  house  by 
burning  your  furniture  ;  to  burden  the  future  with 
debts  for  the  sake  of  present  pleasure;  to  live  by 
expedients  and  sow  for  the  morrow  trouble,  sickness, 
ruin,  envy  and  hate  —  the  enumeration  of  all  the 
misdeeds  of  this  fatal  regime  has  no  end. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  we  hold  to  simple  needs 
we  avoid  all  these  evils  and  replace  them  by  meas- 
ureless good.  That  temperance  and  sobriety  are 
the  best  guardians  of  health  is  an  old  story.  They 
spare  him  who  observes  them  many  a  misery  that 
saddens  existence ;  they  insure  him  health,  love  of 
action,  mental  poise.  Whether  it  be  a  question  of 
food,  dress,  or  dwelling,  simplicity  of  taste  is  also  a 


SIMPLE   NEEDS  79 

source  of  independence  and  safety.  The  more  sim- 
ply you  live,  the  more  secure  is  your  future ;  you 
are  less  at  the  mercy  of  surprises  and  reverses.  An 
illness  or  a  period  of  idleness  does  not  suffice  to  dis- 
possess you  :  a  change  of  position,  even  consider- 
able, does  not  put  you  to  confusion.  Having  simple 
needs,  you  find  it  less  painful  to  accustom  yourself 
to  the  hazards  of  fortune.  You  remain  a  man, 
though  you  lose  your  office  or  your  income,  because 
the  foundation  on  which  your  life  rests  is  not  your 
table,  your  cellar,  your  horses,  your  goods  and 
chattels,  or  your  money.  In  adversity  you  will  not 
act  like  a  nursling  deprived  of  its  bottle  and  rattle. 
Stronger,  better  armed  for  the  struggle,  presenting, 
like  those  with  shaven  heads,  less  advantage  to  the 
hands  of  your  enemy,  you  will  also  be  of  more  profit 
to  your  neighbor.  For  you  will  not  rouse  his  jeal- 
ousy, his  base  desires  or  his  censure,  by  your  luxury, 
your  prodigality,  or  the  spectacle  of  a  sycophant's 
life  ;  and,  less  absorbed  in  your  own  comfort,  you 
will  find  the  means  of  working  for  that  of  others. 


VII 

SIMPLE   PLEASURES 

DO  you  find  life  amusing  in  these  days  ? 
For  my  part,  on    the   whole,  it    seems 
rather   depressing,  and  I  fear   that    my 
opinion  is  not  altogether  personal.     As 
I  observe  the  lives  of  my  contemporaries,  and  listen 
to  their  talk,  I  find  myself  unhappily  confirmed  in 
the  opinion  that  they  do  not  get  much  pleasure  out 
of  things.      And  certainly  it  is  not  from  lack  of  try- 
ing ;  but  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  their  success 
is  meagre.     Where  can  the  fault  be  ? 

Some  accuse  politics  or  business  ;  others  social 
problems  or  militarism.  We  meet  only  an  embar- 
rassment of  choice  when  we  start  to  unstring  the 
chaplet  of  our  carking  cares.  Suppose  we  set  out 
in  pursuit  of  pleasure.  There  is  too  much  pep- 
per in  our  soup  to  make  it  palatable.  Our  arms  are 
filled  with  a  multitude  of  embarrassments,  any  one 
of  which  would  be  enough  to  spoil  our  temper. 

From  morning  till  night,  wherever  we  go,  the  people 
80 


SIMPLE   PLEASURES  81 

we  meet  are  hurried,  worried,  preoccupied.  Some 
have  spilt  their  good  blood  in  the  miserable  con- 
flicts of  petty  politics  :  others  are  disheartened  by 
the  meanness  and  jealousy  they  have  encountered 
in  the  world  of  literature  or  art.  Commercial  com- 
petition troubles  the  sleep  of  not  a  few.  The 
crowded  curricula  of  study  and  the  exigencies  of 
their  opening  careers,  spoil  life  for  young  men. 
The  working  classes  suffer  the  consequences  of  a 
ceaseless  industrial  struggle.  It  is  becoming  disa- 
greeable to  govern,  because  authority  is  diminish- 
ing ;  to  teach,  because  respect  is  vanishing.  Wher- 
ever one  turns  there  is  matter  for  discontent. 

And  yet  history  shows  us  certain  epochs  of  up- 
heaval which  were  as  lacking  in  idyllic  tranquillity  as 
is  our  own,  but  which  the  gravest  events  did  not 
prevent  from  being  gay.  It  even  seems  as  if  the 
seriousness  of  affairs,  the  uncertainty  of  the  morrow, 
the  violence  of  social  convulsions,  sometimes  became 
a  new  source  of  vitality.  It  is  not  a  rare  thing  to 
hear  soldiers  singing  between  two  battles,  and  I 
think  myself  nowise  mistaken  in  saying  that  human 
joy  has  celebrated  its  finest  triumphs  under  the 
greatest  tests  of  endurance.  But  to  sleep  peacefully 
on  the  eve  of  battle  or  to  exult  at  the  stake,  men  had 


82  THE    SIMPLE    LIFE 

then  the  stimulus  of  an  internal  harmony  which  \ve 
perhaps  lack.  Joy  is  not  in  things,  it  is  in  us,  and 
I  hold  to  the  belief  that  the  causes  of  our  present 
unrest,  of  this  contagious  discontent  spreading 
everywhere,  are  in  us  at  least  as  much  as  in  exterior 
conditions. 

To  give  one's  self  up  heartily  to  diversion  one 
must  feel  himself  on  a  solid  basis,  must  believe  in 
life  and  find  it  within  him.  And  here  lies  our  weak- 
ness. So  many  of  us  —  even,  alas  !  the  younger 
men  —  are  at  variance  with  life  ;  and  I  do  not 
speak  of  philosophers  only.  How  do  you  think  a 
man  can  be  amused  while  he  has  his  doubts  whether 
after  all  life  is  worth  living  ?  Besides  this,  one  ob- 
serves a  disquieting  depression  of  vital  force,  which 
must  be  attributed  to  the  abuse  man  makes  of  his 
sensations.  Excess  of  all  kinds  has  blurred  our 
senses  and  poisoned  our  faculty  for  happiness. 
Human  nature  succumbs  under  the  irregularities  im- 
posed upon  it.  Deeply  attainted  at  its  root,  the 
desire  to  live,  persistent  in  spite  of  everything,  seeks 
satisfaction  in  cheats  and  baubles.  In  medical  sci- 
ence we  have  recourse  to  artificial  respiration,  arti- 
ficial alimentation,  and  galvanism.  So,  too,  around 
expiring  pleasure  we  see  a  crowd  of  its  votaries,  ex- 


SIMPLE    PLEASURES  83 

erting  themselves  to  reawaken  it,  to  reanimate  it. 
Most  ingenious  means  have  been  invented  ;  it  can 
never  be  said  that  expense  has  been  spared.  Every- 
thing has  been  tried,  the  possible  and  the  impossi- 
ble. But  in  all  these  complicated  alembics  no  one 
has  ever  arrived  at  distilling  a  drop  of  veritable  joy. 
We  must  not  confound  pleasure  with  the  instru- 
ments of  pleasure.  To  be  a  painter,  does  it  suffice 
to  arm  one's  self  with  a  brush,  or  does  the  purchase 
at  great  cost  of  a  Stradivarius  make  one  a  musician  ? 
No  more,  if  you  had  the  whole  paraphernalia  of 
amusement  in  the  perfection  of  its  ingenuity,  would 
it  advance  you  upon  your  road.  But  with  a  bit  of 
crayon  a  great  artist  makes  an  immortal  sketch. 
It  needs  talent  or  genius  to  paint ;  and  to  amuse 
one's  self,  the  faculty  of  being  happy  :  whoever  pos- 
sesses it  is  amused  at  slight  cost.  This  faculty  is 
destroyed  by  scepticism,  artificial  living,  over-abuse  ; 
it  is  fostered  by  confidence,  moderation  and  normal 
habits  of  thought  and  action. 

An  excellent  proof  of  my  proposition,  and  one  very 
easily  encountered,  lies  in  the  fact  that  wherever 
life  is  simple  and  sane,  true  pleasure  accompanies  it 
as  fragrance  does  uncultivated  flowers.  Be  this  life 
hard,  hampered,  devoid  of  all  things  ordinarily  con- 


84  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

sidered  as  the  very  conditions  of  pleasure,  the  rare 
and  delicate  plant,  joy,  flourishes  there.  It  springs 
up  between  the  flags  of  the  pavement,  on  an  arid 
wall,  in  the  fissure  of  a  rock.  We  ask  ourselves  how 
it  comes,  and  whence  :  but  it  lives ;  while  in  the 
soft  warmth  of  conservatories  or  in  fields  richly  fer- 
tilized you  cultivate  it  at  a  golden  cost  to  see  it 
fade  and  die  in  your  hand. 

Ask  actors  what  audience  is  happiest  at  the  play  ; 
they  will  tell  you  the  popular  one.  The  reason  is 
not  hard  to  grasp.  To  these  people  the  play  is  an 
exception,  they  are  not  bored  by  it  from  over-indul- 
gence. And,  too,  to  them  it  is  a  rest  from  rude  toil. 
The  pleasure  they  enjoy  they  have  honestly  earned, 
and  they  know  its  cost  as  they  know  that  of  each 
sou  earned  by  the  sweat  of  their  labor.  More,  they 
have  not  frequented  the  wings,  they  have  no  in- 
trigues with  the  actresses,  they  do  not  see  the 
wires  pulled.  To  them  it  is  all  real.  And  so  they 
feel  pleasure  unalloyed.  I  think  I  see  the  sated 
sceptic,  whose  monocle  glistens  in  that  box,  cast  a 
disdainful  glance  over  the  smiling  crowd. 

"  Poor  stupid  creatures,  ignorant  and  gross  !  " 
And  yet  they  are  the  true  livers,  while  he   is  an 
artificial   product,  a  mannikin,  incapable   of  experi- 


SIMPLE   PLEASURES  85 

encing  this  fine  and  salutary  intoxication  of  an  hour 
of  frank  pleasure. 

Unhappily,  ingenuousness  is  disappearing,  even  in 
the  rural  districts.  We  see  the  people  of  our  cit- 
ies, and  those  of  the  country  in  their  turn,  break- 
ing with  the  good  traditions.  The  mind,  warped  by 
alcohol,  by  the  passion  for  gambling,  and  by  unhealthy 
literature,  contracts  little  by  little  perverted  tastes. 
Artificial  life  makes  irruption  into  communities  once 
simple  in  their  pleasures,  and  it  is  like  phylloxera  to 
the  vine.  The  robust  tree  of  rustic  joy  finds  its  sap 
drained,  its  leaves  turning  yellow. 

Compare  a  fete  champetre  of  the  good  old  style 
with  the  village  festivals,  so-called,  of  to-day.  In 
the  one  case,  in  the  honored  setting  of  antique  cos- 
tumes, genuine  countrymen  sing  the  folk  songs, 
dance  rustic  dances,  regale  themselves  with  native 
drinks,  and  seem  entirely  in  their  element.  They 
take  their  pleasure  as  the  blacksmith  forges,  as  the 
cascade  tumbles  over  the  rocks,  as  the  colts  frisk 
in  the  meadows.  It  is  contagious :  it  stirs  your 
heart.  In  spite  of  yourself  you  are  ready  to  cry  : 
"Bravo,  my  children.  That  is  fine!"  You  want 
to  join  in.  In  the  other  case,  you  see  villagers  dis- 
guised as  city  folk,  countrywomen  made  hideous 


86  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

by  the  modiste,  and,  as  the  chief  ornament  of  the 
festival,  a  lot  of  degenerates  who  bawl  the  songs  of 
music  halls ;  and  sometimes  in  the  place  of  honor, 
a  group  of  tenth-rate  barnstormers,  imported  for  the 
occasion,  to  civilize  these  rustics  and  give  them  a  taste 
of  refined  pleasures.  For  drinks,  liquors  mixed  with 
brandy  or  absinthe :  in  the  whole  thing  neither  origi- 
nality nor  picturesqueness.  License,  indeed,  and 
clownishness,  but  not  that  abandn"  which  ingenuous 
joy  brings  in  its  train. 

THIS  question  of  pleasure  is  capital.  Staid 
people  generally  neglect  it  as  a  frivolity ; 
utilitarians,  as  a  costly  superfluity.  Those 
whom  we  designate  as  pleasure-seekers  forage  in 
this  delicate  domain  like  wild  boars  in  a  garden. 
No  one  seems  to  doubt  the  immense  human  interest 
attached  to  joy.  It  is  a  sacred  flame  that  must  be 
fed,  and  that  throws  a  splendid  radiance  over  life. 
He  who  takes  pains  to  foster  it  accomplishes  a 
work  as  profitable  for  humanity  as  he  who  builds 
bridges,  pierces  tunnels,  or  cultivates  the  ground. 
So  to  order  one's  life  as  to  keep,  amid  toils  and  suf- 
fering, the  faculty  of  happiness,  and  be  able  to  prop- 
agate it  in  a  sort  of  salutary  contagion  among  one'? 


SIMPLE   PLEASURES  87 

fellow-men,  is  to  do  a  work  of  fraternity  in  the 
noblest  sense.  To  give  a  trifling  pleasure,  smooth 
an  anxious  brow,  bring  a  little  light  into  dark  paths 
—  what  a  truly  divine  office  in  the  midst  of  this 
poor  humanity  !  But  it  is  only  in  great  simplicity 
of  heart  that  one  succeeds  in  filling  it. 

We  are  not  simple  enough  to  be  happy  and  to 
render  others  so.  We  lack  the  singleness  of  heart 
and  the  self-forgetfulness.  We  spread  joy,  as  we 
do  consolation,  by  such  methods  as  to  obtain  nega- 
tive results.  To  console  a  person,  what  do  we  do  ? 
We  set  to  work  to  dispute  his  suffering,  persuade 
him  that  he  is  mistaken  in  thinking  himself 
unhappy.  In  reality,  our  language  translated  into 
truthful  speech  would  amount  to  this :  "  You  suf- 
fer, my  friend  ?  That  is  strange  ;  you  must  be  mis- 
taken, for  I  feel  nothing."  As  the  only  human 
means  of  soothing  grief  is  to  share  it  in  the  heart, 
how  must  a  sufferer  feel,  consoled  in  this  fashion  ? 

To  divert  our  neighbor,  make  him  pass  an  agree- 
able hour,  we  set  out  in  the  same  way.  We  invite 
him  to  admire  our  versatility,  to  laugh  at  our  wit,  to 
frequent  our  house,  to  sit  at  our  table ;  through  it 
all,  our  desire  to  shine  breaks  forth.  Sometimes, 
also,  with  a  patron's  prodigality,  we  offer  him  the 


88  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

beneficence  of  a  public  entertainment  of  our  own 
choosing,  unless  we  ask  him  to  find  amusement  at 
our  home,  as  we  sometimes  do  to  make  up  a  party 
at  cards,  with  the  arriere-pensee  of  exploiting  him  to 
our  own  profit.  Do  you  think  it  the  height  of 
pleasure  for  others  to  admire  us,  to  admit  our 
superiority,  and  to  act  as  our  tools  ?  Is  there  any- 
thing in  the  world  so  disgusting  as  to  feel  one's  self 
patronized,  made  capital  of,  enrolled  in  a  claque  ? 
To  give  pleasure  to  others  and  take  it  ourselves,  we 
have  to  begin  by  removing  the  ego,  which  is  hate- 
ful, and  then  keep  it  in  chains  as  long  as  the  diver- 
sions last.  There  is  no  worse  kill-joy  than  the  ego. 
We  must  be  good  children,  sweet  and  kind,  button 
our  coats  over  our  mrrh1~  ^nfl  titlir  inrl  with  our 
whole  heart  put  oyjaBeJrejTJrtr  the  disposal  of  others. 

Let  us  SQjw€timexs  live  —  be  it  only  for  an  hour, 
and  though  we  must  lay  all  else  aside  —  to  make 
others  smile.  The  sacrifice  is  only  in  appearance  ; 

one  finds  more  pleasure  for  himself  than  he  who 
knows  how,  without  ostentation,  to  give  himself 
that  he  may  procure  for  those  around  him  a  moment 
of  forgetfulness  and  happiness. 

When  shall  we  be  so  simply  and  truly  men  as  not 
to  obtrude  our  personal  business  and  distresses  upon 


SIMPLE   PLEASURES  89 

the  people  we  meet  socially  ?  May  we  not  forget 
for  an  hour  our  pretensions,  our  strife,  our  distribu- 
tions into  sets  and  cliques  —  in  short,  our  "  parts," 
and  become  as  children  once  more,  to  laugh  again 
that  good  laugh  which  does  so  much  to  make  the 
world  better  ? 

HERE  I   feel  drawn  to  speak  of  something 
very  particular,  and  in  so  doing   to  offer 
my  well-disposed  readers  an  opportunity 
to    go  about  a  splendid   business.      I   want   to   call 
their  attention  to  several  classes  of  people  seldom 
thought  of  with  reference  to  their  pleasures. 

It  is  understood  that  a  broom  serves  only  to 
sweep,  a  watering-pot  to  water  plants,  a  coffee-mill 
to  grind  coffee,  and  likewise  it  is  supposed  that  a 
nurse  is  designed  only  to  care  for  the  sick,  a  pro- 
fessor to  teach,  a  priest  to  preach,  bury,  and  confess, 
a  sentinel  to  mount  guard;  and  the  conclusion  is 
drawn  that  the  people  given  up  to  the  more  serious 
business  of  life  are  dedicated  to  labor,  like  the  ox. 
Amusement  is  incompatible  with  their  activities. 
Pushing  this  view  still  further,  we  think  ourselves 
warranted  in  believing  that  the  infirm,  the  afflicted, 
the  bankrupt,  the  vanquished  in  life's  battle,  and  all 


90  THE   SIMPLE-  LIFE 

those  who  carry  heavy  burdens,  are  in  the  shade, 
like  the  northern  slopes  of  mountains,  and  that  it  is 
so  of  necessity.  Whence  the  conclusion  that  seri- 
ous people  have  no  need  of  pleasure,  and  that  to 
offer  it  to  them  would  be  unseemly ;  while  as  to  the 
afflicted,  there  would  be  a  lack  of  delicacy  in  break- 
ing the  thread  of  their  sad  meditations.  It  seems 
therefore  to  be  understood  that  certain  persons  are 
condemned  to  be  always  serious,  that  we  should 
approach  them  in  a  serious  frame  of  mind,  and  talk 
to  them  only  of  serious  things  :  so,  too,  when  we 
visit  the  sick  or  unfortunate  ;  we  should  leave  our 
smiles  at  the  door,  compose  our  face  and  manner  to 
dolefulness,  and  talk  of  anything  heartrending. 
Thus  we  carry  darkness  to  those  in  darkness, 
shade  to  those  in  shade.  We  increase  the  isola- 
tion of  solitary  lives  and  the  monotony  of  the  dull 
and  sad.  We  wall  up  some  existences  as  it  were  in 
dungeons  ;  and  because  the  grass  grows  round  their 
deserted  prison-house,  we  speak  low  in  approaching 
it,  as  though  it  were  a  tomb.  Who  suspects  the 
work  of  infernal  cruelty  which  is  thus  accomplished 
every  day  in  the  world  !  This  ought  not  to  be. 

When   you  find  men  or  women  whose  lives  are 
lost  in  hard  tasks,  or  in  the  painful  office  of  seeking 


SIMPLE   PLEASURES  91 

out  human  wretchedness  and  binding  up  wounds, 
remember  that  they  are  beings  made  like  you,  that 
they  have  the  same  wants,  that  there  are  hours 
when  they  need  pleasure  and  diversion.  You  will 
not  turn  them  aside  from  their  mission  by  making 
them  laugh  occasionally  —  these  people  who  see  so 
many  tears  and  griefs  ;  on  the  contrary,  you  will 
give  them  strength  to  go  on  the  better  with  their 
work. 

And  when  people  whom  you  know  are  in  trial,  do 
not  draw  a  sanitary  cordon  round  them  —  as  though 
they  had  the  plague  —  that  you  cross  only  with 
precautions  which  recall  to  them  their  sad  lot.  On 
the  contrary,  after  showing  all  your  sympathy,  all 
your  respect  for  their  grief,  comfort  them,  help  them 
to  take  up  life  again ;  carry  them  a  breath  from  the 
out-of-doors  —  something  in  short  to  remind  them 
that  their  misfortune  does  not  shut  them  off  from 
the  world. 

And  so  extend  your  sympathy  to  those  whose 
work  quite  absorbs  them,  who  are,  so  to  put  it,  tied 
down.  The  world  is  full  of  men  and  women  sacri- 
ficed to  others,  who  never  have  either  rest  or  pleas- 
ure, and  to  whom  the  least  relaxation,  the  slightest 
respite,  is  a  priceless  good.  And  this  minimum  of 


92  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

comfort  could  be  so  easily  found  for  them  if  only  we 
thought  of  it.  But  the  broom,  you  know,  is  made 
for  sweeping,  and  it  seems  as  though  it  could  not  be 
fatigued.  Let  us  rid  ourselves  of  this  criminal  blind- 
ness which  prevents  us  from  seeing  the  exhaustion 
of  those  who  are  always  in  the  breach.  Relieve  the 
sentinels  perishing  at  their  posts,  give  Sisyphus  an 
hour  to  breathe  ;  take  for  a  moment  the  place  of 
the  mother,  a  slave  to  the  cares  of  her  house  and 
her  children  ;  sacrifice  an  hour  of  our  sleep  for  some- 
one worn  by  long  vigils  with  the  sick.  Young  girl, 
tired  sometimes  perhaps  of  your  walk  with  your 
governess,  take  the  cook's  apron,  and  give  her  the 
key  to  the  fields.  You  will  at  once  make  others 
happy  and  be  happy  yourself.  We  go  unconcernedly 
along  beside  our  brothers  who  are  bent  under  bur- 
dens we  might  take  upon  ourselves  for  a  minute. 
And  this  short  respite  would  suffice  to  soothe  aches, 
revive  the  flame  of  joy  in  many  a  heart,  and  open 
up  a  wide  place  for  brotherliness.  How  much  better 
would  one  understand  another  if  he  knew  how  to 
put  himself  heartily  in  that  other's  place,  and  how 
much  more  pleasure  there  would  be  in  life ! 


SIMPLE   PLEASURES  93 

I  HAVE  spoken  too  fully  elsewhere  of  systema- 
tizing amusements  for  the  young,  to  return  to 
it  here  in  detail.*  But  I  wish  to  say  in  sub- 
stance what  cannot  be  too  often  repeated :  If  you 
wish  youth  to  be  moral,  do  not  neglect  its  pleasures, 
or  leave  to  chance  the  task  of  providing  them.  You 
will  perhaps  say  that  young  people  do  not  like  to 
have  their  amusements  submitted  to  regulations, 
and  that  besides,  in  our  day,  they  are  already  over- 
spoiled  and  divert  themselves  only  too  much.  I 
shall  reply,  first,  that  one  may  suggest  ideas,  indi- 
cate directions,  offer  opportunities  for  amusement, 
without  making  any  regulations  whatever.  In  the 
second  place,  I  shall  make  you  see  that  you  deceive 
yourselves  in  thinking  youth  has  too  much  diversion. 
Aside  from  amusements  that  are  artificial,  enervat- 
ing and  immoral,  that  blight  life  instead  of  making 
it  bloom  in  splendor,  there  are  very  few  left  to-day. 
Abuse,  that  enemy  of  legitimate  use,  has  so  befouled 
the  world,  that  it  is  becoming  difficult  to  touch  any- 
thing but  what  is  unclean  :  whence  watchfulness, 
warnings  and  endless  prohibitions.  One  can  hardly 
stir  without  encountering  something  that  resembles 
unhealthy  pleasure.  Among  young  people  of  to- 

*  See  "Youth,"  the  chapter  on  "Joy." 


94  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

day,  particularly  the  self-respecting,  the  dearth  of 
amusements  causes  real  suffering.  One  is  not 
weaned  from  this  generous  wine  without  discomfort. 
Impossible  to  prolong  this  state  of  affairs  without 
deepening  the  shadow  round  the  heads  of  the 
younger  generations.  We  must  come  to  their  aid. 
Our  children  are  heirs  of  a  joyless  world.  We  be- 
queath them  cares,  hard  questions,  a  life  heavy  with 
shackles  and  complexities.  Let  us  at  least  make  an 
effort  to  brighten  the  morning  of  their  days.  Let  us 
interest  ourselves  in  their  sports,  find  them  pleasure- 
grounds,  open  to  them  our  hearts  and  our  homes. 
Let  us  bring  the  family  into  our  amusements.  Let 
gayety  cease  to  be  a  commodity  of  export.  Let  us 
call  in  our  sons,  whom  our  gloomy  interiors  send  out 
into  the  street,  and  our  daughters,  moping  in  dismal 
solitude.  Let  us  multiply  anniversaries,  family  par- 
ties, and  excursions.  Let  us  raise  good  humor  in 
our  homes  to  the  height  of  an  institution.  Let  the 
schools,  too,  do  their  part.  Let  masters  and  stu- 
dents —  school-boys  and  college-boys  —  meet  to- 
gether oftener  for  amusement.  It  will  be  so  much 
the  better  for  serious  work.  There  is  no  such  aid 
to  understanding  one's  professor  as  to  have  laughed  in 
his  company  ;  and  conversely,  to  be  well  understood 


SIMPLE   PLEASURES  95 

a  pupil  must  be  met  elsewhere  than  in  class  or  ex- 
amination. 

And  who  will  furnish  the  money  ?  What  a  ques- 
tion !  That  is  exactly  the  error.  Pleasure  and 
money :  people  take  them  for  the  two  wings  of  the 
same  bird!  A  gross  illusion  !  Pleasure,  like  all 
other  truly  precious  things  in  this  world,  cannot  be 
bought  or  sold.  If  you  wish  to  be  amused,  you 
must  do  your  part  toward  it ;  that  is  the  essential. 
There  is  no  prohibition  against  opening  your  purse, 
if  you  can  do  it,  and  find  it  desirable.  But  I  assure 
you  it  is  not  indispensable.  Pleasure  and  simplicity 
are  two  old  acquaintances.  Entertain  simply,  meet 
your  friends  simply.  If  you  come  from  work  well 
done,  are  as  amiable  and  genuine  as  possible  toward 
your  companions,  and  speak  no  evil  of  the  absent, 
your  success  is  sure. 


VIII 

THE    MERCENARY    SPIRIT    AND     SIM- 
PLICITY 

WE    have    in    passing    touched    upon    a 
certain  wide-spread   prejudice  which 
attributes  to  money  a   magic  power. 
Having     come     so    near    enchanted 
ground  we  will  not  retire  in  awe,  but  plant  a  firm 
foot  here,  persuaded  of  many  truths  that  should  be 
spoken.     They  are  not  new,  but  how  they  are  for- 
gotten ! 

I  see  no  possible  way  of  doing  without  money. 
The  only  thing  that  theorists  or  legislators  who 
accuse  it  of  all  our  ills  have  hitherto  achieved,  has 
been  to  change  its  name  or  form.  But  they  have 
never  been  able  to  dispense  with  a  symbol  repre- 
sentative of  the  commercial  value  of  things.  One 
might  as  well  wish  to  do  away  with  written  lan- 
guage as  to  do  away  with  money.  Nevertheless, 
this  question  of  a  circulating  medium  is  very 

troublesome.     It  forms  one  of  the  chief  elements  of 
96 


THE   MERCENARY   SPIRIT          97 

complication  in  our  life.  The  economic  difficulties 
amid  which  we  still  flounder,  social  conventionali- 
ties, and  the  entire  organization  of  modern  life, 
have  carried  gold  to  a  rank  so  eminent  that  it  is  not 
astonishing  to  find  the  imagination  of  man  attribut- 
ing to  it  a  sort  of  royalty.  And  it  is  on  this  side 
that  we  shall  attack  the  problem. 

The  term  money  has  for  appendage  that  of  mer- 
chandise. If  there  were  no  merchandise  there 
would  be  no  money ;  but  as  long  as  there  is  mer- 
chandise there  will  be  money,  little  matter  under 
what  form.  The  source  of  all  the  abuses  which 
centre  around  money  lies  in  a  lack  of  discrimination. 
People  have  confused  under  the  term  and  idea  of 
merchandise,  things  which  have  no  relation  with 
one  another.  They  have  attempted  to  give  a  venal 
value  to  things  which  neither  could  have  it  nor 
ought  to.  The  idea  of  purchase  and  sale  has 
invaded  ground  where  it  may  justly  be  considered 
an  enemy  and  a  usurper.  It  is  reasonable  that 
wheat,  potatoes,  wine,  fabrics,  should  be  bought  and 
sold,  and  it  is  perfectly  natural  that  a  man's  labor 
procure  him  rights  to  life,  and  that  there  be  put 
into  his  hands  something  whose  value  represents 
them ;  but  here  already  the  analogy  ceases  to  be 


98  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

complete.  A  man's  labor  is  not  merchandise  in  the 
same  sense  as  a  sack  of  flour  or  a  ton  of  coal.  Into 
this  labor  enter  elements  which  cannot  be  valued  in 
money.  In  short,  there  are  things  which  can  in  no 
"•vise  be  bought :  sleep,  for  instance,  knowledge  of 
the  future,  talent.  He  who  offers  them  for  sale 
must  be  considered  a  fool  or  an  impostor.  And  yet 
there  are  gentlemen  who  coin  money  by  such 
traffic.  They  sell  what  does  not  belong  to  them, 
and  their  dupes  pay  fictitious  values  in  veritable 
coin.  So,  too,  there  are  dealers  in  pleasure,  dealers 
in  love,  dealers  in  miracles,  dealers  in  patriotism, 
and  the  title  of  merchant,  so  honorable  when  it 
represents  a  man  selling  that  which  is  in  truth  a 
commodity  of  trade,  becomes  the  worst  of  stigmas 
when  there  is  question  of  the  heart,  of  religion,  of 
country. 

Almost  all  men  are  agreed  that  to  barter  with 
one's  sentiments,  his  honor,  his  cloth,  his  pen,  or 
his  note,  is  infamous.  Unfortunately  this  idea,  which 
suffers  no  contradiction  as  a  theory,  and  which  thus 
stated  seems  rather  a  commonplace  than  a  high 
moral  truth,  has  infinite  trouble  to  make  its  way  in 
practice.  Traffic  has  invaded  the  world.  The 
money-changers  are  established  even  in  the  sanctu- 


THE   MERCENARY   SPIRIT         99 

ary,  and  by  sanctuary  1  do  not  mean  religious  things 
alone,  but  whatever  mankind  holds  sacred  and  in- 
violable. It  is  not  gold  that  complicates,  corrupts, 
and  debases  life  ;  it  is  our  mercenary  spirit. 

The  mercenary  spirit  resolves  everything  into  a 
single  question  :  How  much  is  that  going  to  bring 
me  ?  and  sums  up  everything  in  a  single  axiom : 
With  money  you  can  procure  anything.  Following 
these  two  principles  of  conduct,  a  society  may 
descend  to  a  degree  of  infamy  impossible  to  describe 
or  to  imagine. 

How  much  is  it  going  to  bring  me  ?  This  question, 
so  legitimate  while  it  concerns  those  precautions 
which  each  ought  to  take  to  assure  his  subsistence 
by  his  labor,  becomes  pernicious  as  soon  as  it  passes 
its  limits  and  dominates  the  whole  life.  This  is  so 
true  that  it  vitiates  even  the  toil  which  gains  our 
daily  bread.  I  furnish  paid  labor  ;  nothing  could 
be  better :  but  if  to  inspire  me  in  this  labor  I  have 
only  the  desire  to  get  the  pay,  nothing  could  be 
worse.  A  man  whose  only  motive  for  action  is  his 
wages,  does  a  bad  piece  of  work :  what  interests 
him  is  not  the  doing,  it's  the  gold.  If  he  can 
retrench  in  pains  without  lessening  his  gains,  be 
assured  that  he  will  do  it  Plowman,  mason,  factory 


100  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

laborer,  he  who  loves  not  his  work  puts  into  it 
neither  interest  nor  dignity  —  is,  in  short,  a  bad 
workman.  It  is  not  well  to  confide  one's  life  to  a 
doctor  who  is  wholly  engrossed  in  his  fees,  for  the 
spring  of  his  action  is  the  desire  to  garnish  his  purse 
with  the  contents  of  yours.  If  it  is  for  his  interest 
that  you  should  suffer  longer,  he  is  capable  of  fos- 
tering your  malady  instead  of  fortifying  youi 
strength.  The  instructor  of  children  who  cares  for 
his  work  only  so  far  as  it  brings  him  profit,  is  a  sad 
teacher  ;  for  his  pay  is  indifferent,  and  his  teaching 
more  indifferent  still.  Of  what  value  is  the  mer- 
cenary journalist  ?  The  day  you  write  for  the 
dollar,  your  prose  is  not  worth  the  dollar  you  write 
for.  The  more  elevated  in  kind  is  the  object  of 
human  labor,  the  more  the  mercenary  spirit,  if  it  be 
present,  makes  this  labor  void  and  corrupts  it. 
There  are  a  thousand  reasons  to  say  that  all  toil 
merits  its  wage,  that  every  man  who  devotes  his 
energies  to  providing  for  his  life  should  have  his 
place  in  the  sun,  and  that  he  who  does  nothing 
useful,  does  not  gain  his  livelihood,  in  short,  is  only 
a  parasite.  But  there  is  no  greater  social  error 
than  to  make  gain  the  sole  motive  of  action.  The 
best  we  put  into  our  work  —  be  that  work  done  by 


THE   MERCENARY   SPIRIT        101 

strength  of  muscle,  warmth  of  heart,  or  concentra- 
tion of  mind  —  is  precisely  that  for  which  no  one 
can  pay  us.  Nothing  better  proves  that  man  is  not 
a  machine  than  this  fact :  two  men  at  work  with 
the  same  forces  and  the  same  movements,  produce 
totally  different  results.  Where  lies  the  cause  of 
this  phenomenon  ?  In  the  divergence  of  their 
intentions.  One  has  the  mercenary  spirit,  the 
other  has  singleness  of  purpose.  Both  receive 
their  pay,  but  the  labor  of  the  one  is  barren  ;  the 
other  has  put  his  soul  into  his  work.  The  work  of 
the  first  is  like  a  grain  of  sand,  out  of  which  nothing 
comes  through  all  eternity  ;  the  other's  work  is  like 
the  living  seed  thrown  into  the  ground  ;  it  germi- 
nates and  brings  forth  harvests.  This  is  the  secret 
which  explains  why  so  many  people  have  failed 
while  employing  the  very  processes  by  which  others 
succeed.  Automatons  do  not  reproduce  their  kind, 
and  mercenary  labor  yields  no  fruit. 

UNQUESTIONABLY  we  must  bow  before 
economic    facts,    and    recognize    the    diffi- 
culties of  living  :  from  day  to  day  it  be- 
comes more  imperative  to  combine  well  one's  forces 
in  order  to  succeed  in  feeding,  clothing,  housing, 


102  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

and  bringing  up  a  family.  He  who  does  not  rightly 
take  account  of  these  crying  necessities,  who  makes 
no  calculation,  no  provision  for  the  future,  is  but  a 
visionary  or  an  incompetent,  and  runs  the  risk  of 
sooner  or  later  asking  alms  from  those  at  whose 
parsimony  he  has  sneered.  And  yet,  what  would 
become  of  us  if  these  cares  absorbed  us  entirely  ? 
if,  mere  accountants,  we  should  wish  to  measure 
our  effort  by  the  money  it  brings,  do  nothing  that 
does  not  end  in  a  receipt,  and  consider  as  things 
worthless  or  pains  lost  whatever  cannot  be  drawn 
up  in  figures  on  the  pages  of  a  ledger  ?  Did  our 
mothers  look  for  pay  in  loving  us  and  caring  for  us  ? 
What  would  become  of  filial  piety  if  we  asked  it 
for  loving  and  caring  for  our  aged  parents  ? 

What  does  it  cost  you  to  speak  the  truth  ?  Mis' 
understandings,  sometimes  sufferings  and  persecu- 
tions. To  defend  your  country  ?  Weariness,  wounds 
and  often  death.  To  do  good  ?  Annoyance,  in- 
gratitude, even  resentment.  Self-sacrifice  enters 
into  all  the  essential  actions  of  humanity.  I  defy 
the  closest  calculators  to  maintain  their  position  in 
the  world  without  ever  appealing  to  aught  but  their 
calculations.  True,  those  who  know  how  to  make 
their  "  pile "  are  rated  as  men  of  ability.  But 


THE   MERCENARY   SPIRIT        103 

look  a  little  closer.  How  much  of  it  do  they  owe  to 
the  unselfishness  of  the  simple-hearted  ?  Would 
they  have  succeeded  had  they  met  only  shrewd  men 
of  their  own  sort,  having  for  device :  "  No  money 
no  service?"  Let  us  be  outspoken;  it  is  due  to 
certain  people  who  do  not  count  too  rigorously,  that 
the  world  gets  on.  The  most  beautiful  acts  of  ser- 
vice and  the  hardest  tasks  have  generally  little  re- 
muneration or  none.  Fortunately  there  are  always 
men  ready  for  unselfish  deeds ;  and  even  for  those 
paid  only  in  suffering,  though  they  cost  gold,  peace, 
and  even  life.  The  part  these  men  play  is  often 
painful  and  discouraging.  Who  of  us  has  not  heard 
recitals  of  experiences  wherein  the  narrator  regretted 
some  past  kindness  he  had  done,  some  trouble  he 
had  taken,  to  have  nothing  but  vexation  in  return  ? 
These  confidences  generally  end  thus:  "It  was  folly 
to  do  the  thing ! "  Sometimes  it  is  right  so  to 
judge;  for  it  is  always  a  mistake  to  cast  pearls  before 
swine  ;  but  how  many  lives  there  are  whose  sole  acts 
of  real  beauty  are  these  very  ones  of  which  the  doers 
repent  because  of  men's  ingratitude  !  Our  wish  for 
humanity  is  that  the  number  of  these  foolish  deeds 
may  go  on  increasing. 


104  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

AND  now  I  arrive  at  the  credo  of  the  mer- 
cenary spirit.  It  is  characterized  by  brev- 
ity. For  the  mercenary  man,  the  law  and 
the  prophets  are  contained  in  this  one  axiom  :  With 
money  you  can  get  anything.  From  a  surface  view  of 
our  social  life,  nothing  seems  more  evident.  "  The 
sinews  of  war,"  "  the  shining  mark,"  "  the  key  that 
opens  all  doors,"  "king  money!  "  —  If  one  gathered 
up  all  the  sayings  about  the  glory  and  power  of  gold, 
he  could  make  a  litany  longer  than  that  which  is 
chanted  in  honor  of  the  Virgin.  You  must  be  with- 
out a  penny,  if  only  for  a  day  or  two,  and  try  to  live 
in  this  world  of  ours,  to  have  any  idea  of  the  needs 
of  him  whose  purse  is  empty.  I  invite  those  who 
love  contrasts  and  unforeseen  situations,  to  attempt 
to  live  without  money  three  days,  and  far  from 
their  friends  and  acquaintances  —  in  short,  far  from 
the  society  in  which  they  are  somebody.  They  will 
gain  more  experience  in  forty-eight  hours  than  in 
a  year  otherwise.  Alas  for  some  people !  they  have 
this  experience  thrust  upon  them,  and  when  verita- 
ble ruin  descends  around  their  heads,  it  is  useless  to 
remain  in  their  own  country,  among  the  companions 
of  their  youth,  their  former  colleagues,  even  those 
indebted  to  them.  People  affect  to  know  them  no 


THE   MERCENARY   SPIRIT        105 

longer.  With  what  bitterness  do  they  comment  on 
the  creed  of  money : — With  gold  one  may  have 
what  he  will ;  without  it,  impossible  to  have  any- 
thing !  They  become  pariahs,  lepers,  whom  every- 
one shuns.  Flies  swarm  round  cadavers,  men  round 
gold.  Take  away  the  gold,  nobody  is  there.  Oh,  it 
has  caused  tears  to  flow,  this  creed  of  gain  !  bitter 
tears,  tears  of  blood,  even  from  those  very  eyes 
which  once  adored  the  golden  calf. 

And  with  it  all,  this  creed  is  false,  quite  false.  I 
shall  not  advance  to  the  attack  with  hackneyed 
tales  of  the  rich  man  astray  in  a  desert,  who  cannot 
get  even  a  drop  of  water  for  his  gold ;  or  the 
decrepit  millionaire  who  would  give  half  he  has  to 
buy  from  a  stalwart  fellow  without  a  cent,  his 
twenty  years  and  his  lusty  health.  No  more  shall  I 
attempt  to  prove  that  one  cannot  buy  happiness. 
So  many  people  who  have  money  and  so  many  more 
who  have  not  would  smile  at  this  truth  as  the  hard- 
est ridden  of  saws.  But  I  shall  appeal  to  the  com- 
mon experience  of  each  of  you,  to  make  you  put 
your  finger  on  the  clumsy  lie  hidden  beneath  an 
axiom  that  all  the  world  goes  about  repeating. 

Fill  your  purse  to  the  best  of  your  means,  and  let 
us  set  out  for  one  of  the  watering-places  of  which 


106  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

there  are  so  many.  I  mean  some  little  town  for- 
merly unknown  and  full  of  simple  folk,  respectful 
and  hospitable,  among  whom  it  was  good  to  be,  and 
cost  little.  Fame  with  her  hundred  trumpets  has 
announced  them  to  the  world,  and  shown  them  how 
they  can  profit  from  their  situation,  their  climate, 
their  personality.  You  start  out,  on  the  faith  of 
Dame  Rumor,  flattering  yourself  that  with  your 
money  you  are  going  to  find  a  quiet  place  to  rest 
and,  far  from  the  world  of  civilization  and  conven- 
tion, weave  a  bit  of  poetry  into  the  warp  of  your 
days. 

The  beginning  is  good.  Nature's  setting  and 
some  patriarchal  costumes,  slow  to  disappear,  de- 
light you.  But  as  time  passes,  the  impression 
is  spoiled.  The  reverse  side  of  things  begins  to 
show.  This  which  you  thought  was  as  true  antique 
as  family  heirlooms,  is  naught  but  trickery  to 
mystify  the  credulous.  Everything  is  labeled,  all  is 
for  sale,  from  the  earth  to  the  inhabitants.  These 
primitives  have  become  the  most  consummate  of 
sharpers.  Given  your  money,  they  have  resolved 
the  problem  of  getting  it  with  the  least  expense  to 
themselves.  On  all  sides  are  nets  and  traps,  like 
spider-webs,  and  the  fly  that  this  gentry  lies  snugly 


THE   MERCENARY   SPIRIT        107 

in  wait  for  is  you.  This  is  what  twenty  or  thirty 
years  of  venality  has  done  for  a  population  once 
simple  and  honest,  whose  contact  was  grateful 
indeed  to  men  worn  by  city  life.  Home-made 
bread  has  disappeared,  butter  comes  from  the 
dealer,  they  know  to  an  art  how  to  skim  milk  and 
adulterate  wine  ;  they  have  all  the  vices  of  dwellers 
in  cities  without  their  virtues. 

As  you  leave,  you  count  your  money.  So  much 
is  wanting,  that  you  make  complaint.  You  are 
wrong.  One  never  pays  too  dear  for  the  conviction 
that  there  are  things  which  money  will  not  buy. 

You  have  need  in  your  house  of  an  intelligent 
and  competent  servant :  attempt  to  find  this  rara 
avis.  According  to  the  principle  that  with  money 
one  may  get  anything,  you  ought,  as  the  position 
you  offer  is  inferior,  ordinary,  good,  or  exceptional, 
to  find  servants  unskilled,  average,  excellent,  supe- 
rior. But  all  those  who  present  themselves  for  the 
vacant  post  are  listed  in  the  last  category,  and  are 
fortified  with  certificates  to  support  their  preten- 
sions. It  is  true  that  nine  times  out  of  ten,  when 
put  to  the  test,  these  experts  are  found  totally 
wanting.  Then  why  did  they  engage  themselves 
with  you?  They  ought  in  truth  to  reply  as  does 


108  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

the  cook   in  the    comedy,  who  is   dearly  paid  and 
proves  to  know  nothing. 

"  Why  did  you  hire  out  as  a  cordon  bleu  ? 
It  mas  to  get  bigger  commissions." 

That  is  the  great  affair.  You  will  always  find 
people  who  like  to  get  big  wages.  More  rarely  you 
find  capability.  And  if  you  are  looking  for  probity, 
the  difficulty  increases.  Mercenaries  may  be  had  for 
the  asking ;  faithfulness  is  another  thing.  Far  be 
it  from  me  to  deny  the  existence  of  faithful  ser- 
vants, at  once  intelligent  and  upright.  But  you 
will  encounter  as  many,  if  not  more,  among  the  illy 
paid  as  among  those  most  highly  salaried.  And  rt 
little  matters  where  you  find  them,  you  may  be  sure 
that  they  are  not  faithful  in  their  own  interest ;  they 
are  faithful  because  they  have  somewhat  of  that 
simplicity  which  renders  us  capable  of  self-abnega- 
tion. 

We  also  hear  on  all  sides  the  adage  that  money 
is  the  sinews  of  war.  There  is  no  question  but  that 
war  costs  much  money,  and  we  know  something 
about  it.  Does  this  mean  that  in  order  to  defend 
herself  against  her  enemies  and  to  honor  her  flag,  a 
country  need  only  be  rich  ?  In  olden  time  the 


THE   MERCENARY   SPIRIT        109 

Greeks  took  it  upon  themselves  to  teach  the  Per- 
sians the  contrary,  and  this  lesson  will  never  cease 
to  be  repeated  in  history.  With  money  ships, 
cannon,  horses  may  be  bought ;  but  not  so  military 
genius,  administrative  wisdom,  discipline,  enthusi- 
asm. Put  millions  into  the  hands  of  your  recruiters, 
and  charge  them  to  bring  you  a  great  leader  and  an 
army.  You  will  find  a  hundred  captains  instead  of 
one,  and  a  thousand  soldiers.  But  put  them  under 
fire :  you  will  have  enough  of  your  hirelings  !  At  least 
one  might  imagine  that  with  money  alone  it  is  pos- 
sible to  lighten  misery.  Ah  !  that  too  is  an  illusion 
from  which  we  must  turn  away.  Money,  be  the 
sum  great  or  small,  is  a  seed  which  germinates  into 
abuses.  Unless  there  go  with  it  intelligence,  kind- 
ness, much  knowledge  of  men,  it  will  do  nothing 
but  harm,  and  we  run  great  risk  of  corrupting  both 
those  who  receive  our  bounty  and  those  charged 
with  its  distribution. 

MONEY  will  not   answer  for   everything  : 
it  is  a  power,  but  it  is  not  all-powerful. 
Nothing    complicates    life,    demoralizes 
man,  perverts  the  normal  course  of  society  like  the 
development    of    venality.       Wherever    it    reigns. 


110  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

everybody  is  duped  by  everybody  else :  one  can  no 
longer  put  trust  in  persons  or  things,  no  longer 
obtain  anything  of  value.  We  would  not  be  detrac- 
tors of  money,  but  this  general  law  must  be  applied 
to  it :  Everything  in  its  own  place.  When  gold, 
which  should  be  a  servant,  becomes  a  tyrannical 
power,  affronting  morality,  dignity  and  liberty  ;  when 
some  exert  themselves  to  obtain  it  at  any  price, 
offering  for  sale  what  is  not  merchandise,  and 
others,  possessing  wealth,  fancy  that  they  can  pur- 
chase what  no  one  may  buy,  it  is  time  to  rise  against 
this  gross  and  criminal  superstition,  and  cry  aloud  to 
the  imposture  :  "  Thy  money  perish  with  thee  !  " 
The  most  precious  things  that  man  possesses  he  has 
almost  always  received  gratuitously :  let  him  learn 
so  to  give  them. 


IX 

NOTORIETY    AND    THE    INGLORIOUS 
GOOD 

ONE  of  the  chief  puerilities  of  our  time  is 
the  love  of  advertisement.  To  emerge 
from  obscurity,  to  be  in  the  public  eye, 
to  make  one's  self  talked  of — some 
people  are  so  consumed  with  this  desire  that  we  are 
justified  in  declaring  them  attacked  with  an  itch  for 
publicity.  In  their  eyes  obscurity  is  the  height  of 
ignominy :  so  they  do  their  best  to  keep  their  names 
in  every  mouth.  In  their  obscure  position  they 
look  upon  themselves  as  lost,  like  ship-wrecked 
sailors  whom  a  night  of  tempest  has  cast  on  some 
lonely  rock,  and  who  have  recourse  to  cries,  volleys, 
fire,  all  the  signals  imaginable,  to  let  it  be  known 
that  they  are  there.  Not  content  with  setting  off 
crackers  and  innocent  rockets,  many,  to  make  them- 
selves heard  at  any  cost,  have  gone  to  the  length  of 
perfidy  and  even  crime.  The  incendiary  Erostratus 

has  made  numerous  disciples.     How  many  men  of 
111 


112  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

to-day  have  become  notorious  for  having  destroyed 
something  of  mark ;  pulled  down  —  or  tried  to  pull 
down  —  some  man's  high  reputation ;  signalled  their 
passage,  in  short,  by  a  scandal,  a  meanness,  or  an 
atrocity  ! 

This  rage  for  notoriety  does  not  surge  through 
cracked  brains  alone,  or  only  in  the  world  of  advent- 
urers, charlatans  and  pretenders  generally ;  it  has 
spread  abroad  in  all  the  domains  of  life,  spiritual 
and  material.  Politics,  literature,  even  science,  and 
—  most  odious  of  all  —  philanthropy  and  religion 
are  infected.  Trumpets  announce  a  good  deed 
done,  and  souls  must  be  saved  with  din  and  clamor. 
Pursuing  its  way  of  destruction,  the  rage  for  noise 
has  entered  places  ordinarily  silent,  troubled  spirits 
naturally  serene,  and  vitiated  in  large  measure  all 
activity  for  good.  The  abuse  of  showing  everything, 
or  rather,  putting  everything  on  exhibition ;  the 
growing  incapacity  to  appreciate  that  which  chooses 
to  remain  hidden,  and  the  habit  of  estimating  the 
value  of  things  by  the  racket  they  make,  have  come 
to  corrupt  the  judgment  of  the  most  earnest  men, 
and  one  sometimes  wonders  if  society  will  not  end 
by  transforming  itself  into  a  great  fair,  with  each  one 
beating  his  drum  in  front  of  his  tent. 


NOTORIETY  113 

Gladly  do  we  quit  the  dust  and  din  of  like 
exhibitions,  to  go  and  breathe  peacefully  in  some 
far-off  nook  of  the  woods,  all  surprise  that  the  brook 
is  so  limpid,  the  forest  so  still,  the  solitude  so 
enchanting.  Thank  God  there  are  yet  these  unin- 
vaded  corners.  However  formidable  the  uproar, 
however  deafening  the  babel  of  merry-andrews,  it 
cannot  carry  beyond  a  certain  limit ;  it  grows  faint 
and  dies  away.  The  realm  of  silence  is  vaster  than 
the  realm  of  noise.  Herein  is  our  consolation. 

REST  a  moment  on  the  threshold  of  this 
infinite  world  of  inglorious  good,  of  quiet 
activities.  Instantly  we  are  under  the 
charm  we  feel  in  stretches  of  untrodden  snow,  in 
hiding  wood-flowers,  in  disappearing  pathways  that 
seem  to  lead  to  horizons  without  bourn.  The  world 
is  so  made  that  the  engines  of  labor,  the  most 
active  agencies,  are  everywhere  concealed.  Nature 
affects  a  sort  of  coquetry  in  masking  her  operations. 
It  costs  you  pains  to  spy  her  out,  ingenuity  to  sur- 
prise her,  if  you  would  see  anything  but  results  and 
penetrate  the  secrets  of  her  laboratories.  Likewise 
in  human  society,  the  forces  which  move  for  good 
remain  invisible,  and  even  in  our  individual  lives  : 


114  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

what  is  best  in  us  is  incommunicable,  buried  in  the 
depths  of  us.  And  the  more  vital  are  these  sensibil- 
ities and  intuitions,  confounding  themselves  with 
the  very  source  of  our  being,  the  less  ostentatious 
they  are :  they  think  themselves  profaned  by 
exposure  to  the  light  of  day.  There  is  a  secret 
and  inexpressible  joy  in  possessing  at  the  heart  of 
one's  being,  an  interior  world  known  only  to  God, 
whence,  nevertheless,  tome  impulses,  enthusiasms, 
the  daily  renewal  of  courage,  and  the  most  powerful 
motives  for  activity  among  6ur  fellow  men.  When 
this  intimate  life  loses  in  intensity,  when  man 
neglects  it  for  what  is  superficial,  he  forfeits  in 
worth  all  that  he  gains  in  appearance.  By  a  sad 
fatality,  it  happens  that  in  this  way  we  often 
become  less  admirable  in  proportion  as  we  are 
more  admired.  And  we  remain  convinced  that 
what  is  best  in  the  world  is  unknown  there ;  for 
only  those  know  it  who  possess  it,  and  if  they  speak 
of  it,  in  so  doing  they  destroy  its  charm. 

There  are  passionate  lovers  of  nature  whom  she 
fascinates  most  in  by-places,  in  the  cool  of  forests, 
in  the  clefts  of  canons,  everywhere  that  the  careless 
lover  is  not  admitted  to  her  contemplation.  For- 
getting time  and  the  life  of  the  world,  they  pass 


NOTORIETY  115 

days  in  these  inviolate  stillnesses,  watching  a  bird 
build  its  nest  or  brood  over  its  young,  or  some  little 
groundling  at  its  gracious  play.  So  to  seek  the  good 
within  himself —  one  must  go  where  he  no  longer 
finds  constraint,  or  pose,  or  "  gallery  "  of  any  sort, 
but  the  simple  fact  of  a  life  made  up  of  wishing  to 
be  what  it  is  good  for  it  to  be,  without  troubling 
about  anything  else. 

May  we  be  permitted  to  record  here  some  obser- 
vations made  from  life  ?  As  no  names  are  given, 
they  cannot  be  considered  indiscreet. 

In  my  country  of  Alsace,  on  the  solitary  route 
whose  interminable  ribbon  stretches  on  and  on 
under  the  forests  of  the  Vosges,  there  is  a  stone- 
breaker  whom  I  have  seen  at  his  work  for  thirty 
years.  The  first  time  I  came  upon  him,  I  was  a 
young  student,  setting  out  with  swelling  heart  for 
the  great  city.  The  sight  of  this  man  did  me 
good,  for  he  was  humming  a  song  as  he  broke  his 
stones.  We  exchanged  a  few  words,  and  he  said  at 
the  end :  "  Well,  good-by,  my  boy,  good  courage 
and  good  luck  I "  Since  then  I  have  passed  and 
repassed  along  that  same  route,  under  circumstances 
the  most  diverse,  painful  and  joyful.  The  student 
has  finished  his  course,  the  breaker  of  stones 


116  THE   SIMPLE  LIFE 

remains  what  he  was.  He  has  taken  a  few  more 
precautions  against  the  seasons'  storms :  a  rush-mat 
protects  his  back,  and  his  felt  hat  is  drawn  further 
down  to  shield  his  face.  But  the  forest  is  always 
sending  back  the  echo  of  his  valiant  hammer. 
How  many  sudden  tempests  have  broken  over  his 
bent  back,  how  much  adverse  fate  has  fallen  on  his 
head,  on  his  house,  on  his  country '  He  continues 
to  break  his  stones,  and,  coming  and  going  I  find 
him  by  the  roadside,  smiling  in  spite  of  his  age  and 
his  wrinkles,  benevolent,  speaking  —  above  all  in 
dark  days — those  simple  words  of  brave  men,  which 
have  so  much  effect  when  they  are  scanned  to  the 
breaking  of  stones. 

It  would  be  quite  impossible  to  express  the  emo- 
tion the  sight  of  this  simple  man  gives  me,  and 
certainly  he  has  no  suspicion  of  it.  I  know  of 
nothing  more  reassuring  and  at  the  same  time  more 
searching  for  the  vanity  which  ferments  in  our 
hearts,  than  this  coming  face  to  face  with  an 
obscure  worker  who  does  his  task  as  the  oak  grows 
and  as  the  good  God  makes  his  sun  to  rise,  without 
asking  who  is  looking  on. 

I  have  known,  too,  a  number  of  old  teachers,  men 
and  women  who  have  passed  their  whole  life  at  the 


NOTORIETY  117 

same  occupation  —  making  the  rudiments  of  human 
knowledge  and  a  few  principles  of  conduct  pene- 
trate heads  sometimes  harder  than  the  rocks  They 
have  done  it  with  their  whole  soul,  throughout  the 
length  of  a  hard  life  in  which  the  attention  of  men 
had  little  place.  When  they  lie  m  their  unknown 
graves,  no  one  remembers  them  but  a  few  humble 
people  like  themselves.  But  their  recompense  is  in 
their  love.  No  one  is  greater  than  these  unknown. 
How  many  hidden  virtues  may  one  not  discover  — 
if  he  know  how  to  search  —  among  people  of  a  class 
he  often  ridicules  without  perceiving  that  in  so  doing 
he  is  guilty  of  cruelty,  ingratitude  and  stupidity  :  1 
mean  old  maids.  People  amuse  themselves  with 
remarking  the  surprising  dress  and  ways  of  some  of 
them  — •-  things  of  no  consequence,  for  that  matter. 
They  persist  also  in  reminding  us  that  others,  very 
selfish,  take  interest  in  nothing  but  their  own  com- 
fort and  that  of  some  cat  or  canary  upon  which 
their  powers  of  affection  center ;  and  certainly  these 
are  not  outdone  in  egoism  by  the  most  hardened 
celibates  of  the  stronger  sex.  But  what  we  oftenest 
forget  is  the  amount  of  self-sacrifice  hidden  mod- 
estly away  in  so  many  of  these  truly  admirable  lives. 
Is  it  nothing  to  be  without  home  and  its  love,  with- 


118  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

out  future,  without  personal  ambition  ?  to  take  upon 
one's  self  that  cross  of  solitary  life,  so  hard  to  bear, 
especially  when  there  is  added  the  solitude  of  the 
heart?  to  forget  one's  self  and  have  no  other  interests 
than  the  care  of  the  old,  of  orphans,  the  poor,  the 
infirm  —  those  whom  the  brutal  mechanism  of  life 
casts  out  among  its  waste  ?  Seen  from  without,  these 
apparently  tame  and  lusterless  li ves  rouse  pity  rather 
than  envy.  Those  who  approach  gently  sometimes 
divine  sad  secrets,  great  trials  undergone,  heavy 
burdens  beneath  which  too  fragile  shoulders  bend ; 
but  this  is  only  the  side  of  shadow.  We  should  learn 
to  know  and  value  this  richness  of  heart,  this  pure 
goodness,  this  power  to  love,  to  console,  to  hope,  this 
joyful  giving  up  of  self,  this  persistence  in  sweetness 
and  forgiveness  even  toward  the  unworthy.  Poor 
old  maids !  how  many  wrecked  lives  have  you 
rescued,  how  many  wounded  have  you  healed,  how 
many  wanderers  have  you  gently  led  aright,  how 
many  naked  have  you  clothed,  how  many  orphans 
have  you  taken  in,  and  how  many  strangers,  who 
would  have  been  alone  in  the  world  but  for  you  — 
you  who  yourselves  are  often  remembered  of  no 
one.  I  mistake.  Someone  knows  you ;  it  is  that 
great  mysterious  Pity  which  keeps  watch  over  our 


NOTORIETY  119 

lives  and  suffers  in  our  misfortunes.  Forgotten  like 
you,  often  blasphemed,  it  has  confided  to  you  some 
of  its  heavenliest  messages,  and  that  perhaps  is  why 
above  your  gentle  comings  and  goings,  we  some- 
times seem  to  hear  the  rustling  wings  of  ministering 
angels. 

THE  good  hides  itself  under  so  many  differ- 
ent forms,  that  one  has  often  as  much 
pains  to  discover  it  as  to  unearth  the  best 
concealed  crimes.  A  Russian  doctor,  who  had 
passed  ten  years  of  his  life  in  Siberia,  condemned  for 
political  reasons  to  forced  labor,  used  to  find  great 
pleasure  in  telling  of  the  generosity,  courage  and 
humanity  he  had  observed,  not  only  among  a  large 
number  of  the  condemned,  but  also  among  the 
convict  guards.  For  the  moment  one  is  tempted  to 
exclaim :  Where  will  not  the  good  hide  away ! 
And  in  truth  life  offers  here  great  surprises  and 
embarrassing  contrasts.  There  are  good  men, 
officially  so  recognized,  quoted  among  their  associ- 
ates, I  had  almost  said  guaranteed  by  the  Govern- 
ment or  the  Church,  who  can  be  reproached  with 
nothing  but  dry  and  hard  hearts ;  while  we  are 
astonished  to  encounter  in  certain  fallen  human 


120  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

beings,  the  most  genuine  tenderness,  and  as  it  were 
a  thirst  for  self-devotion. 

I  SHOULD  like  to  speak  next  —  apropos  of  the 
inglorious  good  —  of  a  class  that  to-day  it  is 
thought  quite  fitting  to  treat  with  the  utmost 
one-sidedness.  I  mean  the  rich.  Some  people 
think  the  last  word  is  said  when  they  have  stigma- 
tized  that  infamy,  capital.  For  them,  all  who  pos- 
sess great  fortunes  are  monsters  gorged  with  the 
blood  of  the  miserable.  Others,  not  so  declama- 
tory, persist,  however,  in  confounding  riches  with 
egoism  and  insensibility.  Justice  should  be  visited 
on  these  errors,  be  they  involuntary  or  calculated. 
No  doubt  there  are  rich  men  who  concern  them- 
selves with  nobody  else,  and  others  who  do  good 
only  with  ostentation  ;  indeed,  we  know  it  too  well. 
But  does  their  inhumanity  or  hypocrisy  take  away 
the  value  of  the  good  that  others  do,  and  that  they 
often  hide  with  a  modesty  so  perfect  ? 

I  knew  a  man  to  whom  every  misfortune  had 
come  which  can  strike  us  in  our  affections.  He  had 
lost  a  beloved  wife,  had  seen  all  his  children  buried, 
one  after  another.  But  he  had  a  great  fortune,  the 
result  of  his  own  labor.  I  iving  in  the  utmost  sim« 


NOTORIETY  121 

plicity,  almost  without  personal  wants,  he  spent  his 
time  in  searching  for  opportunities  to  do  good,  and 
profiting  by  them.  How  many  people  he  surprised 
in  flagrant  poverty,  what  means  he  combined  for  re- 
lieving distress  and  lighting  up  dark  lives,  with  what 
kindly  thoughtfulness  he  took  his  friends  unawares, 
no  one  can  imagine.  He  liked  to  do  good  to  others 
and  enjoy  their  surprise  when  they  did  not  know 
whence  the  relief  came.  It  pleased  him  to  repair 
the  injustices  of  fortune,  to  bring  tears  of  happiness 
in  families  pursued  by  mischance.  He  was  contin- 
ually plotting,  contriving,  machinating  in  the  dark, 
with  a  childish  fear  of  being  caught  with  his  hand 
in  the  bag.  The  greater  part  of  these  fine  deeds 
were  not  known  till  after  his  death ;  the  whole  of 
them  we  shall  never  know. 

He  was  a  socialist  of  the  right  sort!  for  there 
are  two  kinds  of  them.  Those  who  aspire  to  appro- 
priate to  themselves  a  part  of  the  goods  of  others, 
are  numerous  and  commonplace.  To  belong  to 
their  order  it  suffices  to  have  a  big  appetite. 
Those  who  are  hungering  to  divide  their  own  goods 
with  men  who  have  none,  are  rare  and  precious,  for 
to  enter  this  choice  company  there  is  need  of  a 
brave  and  noble  heart,  free  from  selfishness,  and 


122  THE   SIMPLE  LIFE 

sensitive  to  both  the  happiness  and  unhappiness  of 
its  fellows.  Fortunately  the  race  of  these  socialists 
is  not  extinct,  and  I  feel  an  unalloyed  satisfaction  in 
offering  them  a  tribute  they  never  claim. 

I  must  be  pardoned  for  dwelling  upon  this.  It 
does  one  good  to  offset  the  bitterness  of  so  many  in- 
famies, so  many  calumnies,  so  much  charlatanism,  by 
resting  the  eyes  upon  something  more  beautiful, 
breathing  the  perfume  of  these  stray  corners  where 
simple  goodness  flowers. 

A  lady,  a  foreigner,  doubtless  little  used  to  Paris- 
ian life,  just  now  told  me  with  what  horror  the 
things  she  sees  here  inspire  her: — these  vile  post- 
ers, these  "  yellow "  journals,  these  women  with 
bleached  hair,  this  crowd  rushing  to  the  races,  to 
dance-halls,  to  roulette  tables,  to  corruption  —  the 
whole  flood  of  superficial  and  mundane  life.  She 
did  not  speak  the  word  Babylon,  but  doubtless  it 
was  out  of  pity  for  one  of  the  inhabitants  of  this 
city  of  perdition. 

"  Alas,  yes,  madam,  these  things  are  sad,  but  you 
have  not  seen  all." 

"  Heaven  preserve  me  from  that !  " 

"On  the  contrary,  I  wish  you  could  see  every- 
thing ;  for  if  the  dark  side  is  very  ugly,  there  is  so 


NOTORIETY  123 

much  to  atone  for  it.  And  believe  me,  madam,  you 
have  simply  to  change  your  quarter,  or  observe  at 
another  hour.  For  instance,  take  the  Paris  of  early 
morning.  It  will  offer  much  to  correct  your  impres- 
sions of  the  Paris  of  the  night.  Go  see,  among  so 
many  other  working  people,  the  street-sweepers, 
who  come  out  at  the  hour  when  the  revellers  and 
malefactors  go  in.  Observe  beneath  these  rags 
those  caryatid  bodies,  those  austere  faces !  How 
serious  they  are  at  their  work  of  sweeping  away 
the  refuse  of  the  night's  revelry.  One  might  liken 
them  to  the  prophets  at  Ahasuerus's  gates.  There 
are  women  among  them,  many  old  people.  When 
the  air  is  cold  they  stop  to  blow  their  fingers,  and 
then  go  at  it  again.  So  it  is  every  day.  And  they, 
too,  are  inhabitants  of  Paris. 

Go  next  to  the  faubourgs,  to  the  factories,  espe- 
cially the  smaller  ones,  where  the  children  or  the 
employers  labor  with  the  men.  Watch  the  army 
of  workers  marching  to  their  tasks.  How  ready  and 
willing  these  young  girls  seem,  as  they  come  gaily 
down  from  their  distant  quarters  to  the  shops  and 
stores  and  offices  of  the  city.  Then  visit  the  homes 
from  which  they  come.  See  the  woman  of  the  peo- 
ple at  her  work.  Her  husband's  wages  are  modest, 


THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

their  dwelling  is  cramped,  the  children  are  many, 
the  father  is  often  harsh.  Make  a  collection  of  the 
biographies  of  lowly  people,  budgets  of  modest  fam- 
ily life :  look  at  them  attentively  and  long. 

After  that,  go  see  the  students.  Those  who  have 
scandalized  you  in  the  streets  are  numerous,  but 
those  who  labor  hard  are  legion  —  only  they  stay  at 
home,  and  are  not  talked  about.  If  you  knew  the 
toil  and  dig  of  the  Latin  Quarter!  You  find  the 
papers  full  of  the  rumpus  made  by  a  certain  set  of 
youths  who  call  themselves  students.  The  papers 
say  enough  of  those  who  break  windows ;  but  why 
do  they  make  no  mention  of  those  who  spend  their 
nights  toiling  over  problems?  Because  it  wouldn't 
interest  the  public.  Yes,  when  now  and  then  one 
of  them,  a  medical  student  perhaps,  dies  a  victim  to 
professional  duty,  the  matter  has  two  lines  in  the 
dailies.  A  drunken  brawl  gets  half  a  column,  with 
every  detail  elaborated.  Nothing  is  lacking  but  the 
portraits  of  the  heroes  —  and  not  always  that ! 

I  should  never  end  were  I  to  try  to  point  out  to 
you  all  that  you  must  go  to  see  il  you  would  see 
all:  you  would  needs  make  the  tour  of  society  at 
large,  rich  and  poor,  wise  and  ignorant.  And  cer- 
tainly you  would  not  judge  so  severely  then.  Paris 


NOTORIETY  125 

is  a  world,  and  here,  as  in  the  world  in  general,  the 
good  hides  away  while  the  evil  flaunts  itself.  Ob- 
serving only  the  surface,  you  sometimes  ask  how 
there  can  possibly  be  so  much  riff-raff.  When,  on 
the  contrary,  you  look  into  the  depths,  you  are 
astonished  that  in  this  troublous,  obscure  and  some- 
times frightful  life  there  can  be  so  much  of  virtue. 

BUT  why  linger  over  these  things  ?  Am  I 
not  blowing  trumpets  for  those  who  hold 
trumpet-blowing  in  horror  ?  Do  not  un- 
derstand me  so.  My  aim  is  this  —  to  make  men 
think  about  unostentatious  goodness  ;  above  all,  to 
make  them  love  it  and  practice  it.  The  man  who 
finds  his  satisfaction  in  things  which  glitter  and 
hold  his  eyes,  is  lost :  first,  because  he  will  thus 
see  evil  before  all  else ;  then,  because  he  gets  ac- 
customed to  the  sight  of  only  such  good  as  seeks 
for  notice,  and  therefore  easily  succumbs  to  the 
temptation  to  live  himself  for  appearances.  Not 
only  must  one  be  resigned  to  obscurity,  he  must 
love  it,  if  he  does  not  wish  to  slip  insensibly  into 
the  ranks  of  figurants,  who  preserve  their  parts  only 
while  under  the  eyes  of  the  spectators,  and  put  off 
in  the  wings  the  restraints  imposed  on  the  stage. 


126  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

Here  we  are  in  the  presence  of  one  of  the  essential 
elements  of  the  moral  life.  And  this  which  we  say 
is  true  not  only  for  those  who  are  called  humble 
and  whose  lot  it  is  to  pass  unremarked  ;  it  is  just  as 
true,  and  more  so,  for  the  chief  actors.  If  you 
would  not  be  a  brilliant  inutility,  a  man  of  gold  lace 
and  plumes,  but  empty  inside,  you  must  play  the 
star  role  in  the  simple  spirit  of  the  most  obscure  of 
your  collaborators.  He  who  is  nothing  worth  except 
on  hours  of  parade,  is  worth  less  than  nothing. 
Have  we  the  perilous  honor  of  being  always  in 
view,  of  marching  in  the  front  ranks  ?  Let  us  take 
so  much  the  greater  care  of  the  sanctuary  of  silent 
good  within  us.  Let  us  give  to  the  structure  whose 
facade  is  seen  of  our  fellowmen,  a  wide  foundation 
of  simplicity,  of  humble  fidelity.  And  then,  out 
of  sympathy,  out  of  gratitude,  let  us  stay  near  our 
brothers  who  are  unknown  to  fame.  We  owe 
everything  to  them  —  do  we  not  ?  I  call  to  wit- 
ness everyone  who  has  found  in  life  this  encour- 
aging experience,  that  stones  hidden  in  the  soil  hold 
up  the  whole  edifice.  All  those  who  arrive  at  hav- 
ing a  public  and  recognized  value,  owe  it  to  some 
humble  spiritual  ancestors,  to  some  forgotten  inspir- 
ers.  A  small  number  of  the  good,  among  them 


NOTORIETY  127 

simple  women,  peasants,  vanquished  heroes,  parents 
as  modest  as  they  are  revered,  personify  for  us 
beautiful  and  noble  living ;  their  example  inspires 
us  and  gives  us  strength.  The  remembrance  of 
them  is  forever  inseparable  from  that  conscience 
before  which  we  arraign  ourselves.  In  our  hours 
of  trial,  we  think  of  them,  courageous  and  serene, 
and  our  burdens  lighten.  In  clouds  they  compass 
us  about,  these  witnesses  invisible  and  beloved  who 
keep  us  from  stumbling  and  our  feet  from  falling 
in  the  battle  ;  and  day  by  day  do  they  prove  to  us 
that  the  treasure  of  humanity  is  its  hidden  goodness. 


THE  WORLD  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  THE 
HOME 

IN  the  time  of  the  Second  Empire,  in  one  of  our 
pleasantest  sub-prefectures  of  the  provinces, 
a  little  way  from  some  baths  frequented  by 
the    Emperor,    there    was   a   mayor,    a   very 
worthy   man  and   intelligent  too,  whose   head   was 
suddenly  turned  by  the  thought  that  his  sovereign 
might  one  day  descend  upon  his  home.      Up  to  this 
time  he  had  lived  in  the  house  of  his  fathers,  a  son 
respectful   of  the   slightest  family   traditions.     But 
when  once  the  all-absorbing  idea  of  receiving  the 
Emperor  had  taken  possession  of  his  brain,  he  be- 
came another  man.      In   this  new  light,  what  had 
before  seemed  sufficient  for  his  needs,  even  enjoy- 
able, all  this  simplicity  that  his  ancestors  had  loved, 
appeared  poor,  ugly,  ridiculous.     Out  of  the  ques- 
tion to  ask  an  Emperor  to  climb  this  wooden  stair- 
case,  sit  in  these  old  arm-chairs,  walk  over  such  su- 
perannuated carpets.     So  the  mayor  called  architect 
128 


THE   LIFE   OF  THE   HOME       129 

and  masons  ;  pickaxes  attacked  walls  and  demolished 
partitions,  and  a  drawing-room  was  made,  out  of  all 
proportion  to  the  rest  of  the  house  in  size  and 
splendor.  He  and  his  family  retired  into  close 
quarters,  where  people  and  furniture  incommoded 
each  other  generally.  Then,  having  emptied  hig 
purse  and  upset  his  household  by  this  stroke  of  ge- 
nius, he  awaited  the  royal  guest.  Alas,  he  soon  saw 
the  end  of  the  Empire  arrive,  but  the  Emperor 
never. 

The  folly  of  this  poor  man  is  not  so  rare.  As 
mad  as  he  are  all  those  who  sacrifice  their  home 
life  to  the  demands  of  the  world.  And  the  danger 
in  such  a  sacrifice  is  most  menacing  in  times  of  un- 
rest. Our  contemporaries  are  constantly  exposed  to 
it,  and  constantly  succumbing.  How  many  family 
treasures  have  they  literally  thrown  away  to  satisfy 
worldly  ambitions  and  conventions ;  but  the  hap- 
piness upon  which  they  thought  to  come  through 
these  impious  immolations  always  eludes  them. 

To  give  up  the  ancestral  hearth,  to  let  the  family 
traditions  fall  into  desuetude,  to  abandon  the  simple 
domestic  customs,  for  whatever  return,  is  to  make  a 
fool's  bargain ;  and  such  is  the  place  in  society  of 
family  life,  that  if  this  be  impoverished,  the  trouble 


130  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

is  felt  throughout  the  whole  social  organism.  To 
enjoy  a  normal  development,  this  organism  has  need 
of  well-tried  individuals,  each  having  his  own  value, 
his  own  hall-mark.  Otherwise  society  becomes  a 
flock,  and  sometimes  a  flock  without  a  shepherd. 
But  whence  does  the  individual  draw  his  originality 
—  this  unique  something,  which,  joined  to  the  dis- 
tinctive qualities  of  others,  constitutes  the  wealth 
and  strength  of  a  community  ?  He  can  draw  it  only 
from  his  own  family.  Destroy  the  assemblage  of 
memories  and  practices  whence  emanates  for  each 
home  an  atmosphere  in  miniature,  and  you  dry  up 
the  sources  of  character,  sap  the  strength  of  public 
spirit. 

It  concerns  the  country  that  each  home  be  a 
world,  profound,  respected,  communicating  to  its 
members  an  ineffaceable  moral  imprint.  But  before 
pursuing  the  subject  further,  let  us  rid  ourselves  of  a 
misunderstanding.  Family  feeling,  like  all  beautiful 
things,  has  its  caricature,  which  is  family  egoism. 
Some  families  are  like  barred  and  bolted  citadels, 
their  members  organized  for  the  exploitation  of  the 
whole  world.  Everything  that  does  not  directly 
concern  them  is  indifferent  to  them.  They  live  like 
colonists,  I  had  almost  said  intruders,  in  the  society 


THE   LIFE   OF   THE   HOME       131 

wound  them.  Their  particularism  is  pushed  to  such 
an  excess  that  they  make  enemies  of  the  whole  hu- 
man race.  In  their  small  way  they  resemble  those 
powerful  societies,  formed  from  time  to  time  through 
the  ages,  which  possess  themselves  of  universal  rule, 
and  for  which  no  one  outside  their  own  community 
counts.  This  is  the  spirit  that  has  sometimes  made 
the  family  seem  a  retreat  of  egoism  which  it  was 
necessary  to  destroy  for  the  public  safety.  But  as 
patriotism  and  jingoism  are  as  far  apart  as  the  east 
from  the  west,  so  are  family  feeling  and  clannish- 
ness. 

HERE  we  are  talking  of  right  family  feeling, 
and  nothing  else  in  the  world  can  take  its 
place ;  for  in  it  lie  in  germ  all  those  fine 
and  simple  virtues  which  assure  the  strength  and 
duration  of  social  institutions.  And  the  very  base  of 
family  feeling  is  respect  for  the  past ;  for  the  best 
possessions  of  a  family  are  its  common  memories. 
An  intangible,  indivisible  and  inalienable  capital, 
these  souvenirs  constitute  a  sacred  fund  that  each 
member  of  a  family  ought  to  consider  more  precious 
than  anything  else  he  possesses.  They  exist  in  a 
dual  form :  in  idea  and  in  fact.  They  show  them- 


132  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

selves  in  language,  habits  of  thought,  sentiments, 
even  instincts,  and  one  sees  them  materialized  in 
portraits,  furniture,  buildings,  dress,  songs.  To  pro- 
fane eyes,  they  are  nothing ;  to  the  eyes  of  those 
who  know  how  to  appreciate  the  things  of  the  fam- 
ily, they  are  relics  with  which  one  should  not  part 
at  any  price. 

But  what  generally  happens  in  our  day  ?  World- 
liness  wars  upon  the  sentiment  of  family,  and  I 
know  of  no  strife  more  impassioned.  By  great 
means  and  small,  by  all  sorts  of  new  customs,  require- 
ments and  pretensions,  the  spirit  of  the  world 
breaks  into  the  domestic  sanctuary.  What  are  this 
stranger's  rights?  its  titles?  Upon  what  does  it 
rest  its  peremptory  claims  ?  This  is  what  people 
too  often  neglect  to  inquire.  They  make  a  mis- 
take. We  treat  the  invader  as  very  poor  and  simple 
people  do  a  pompous  visitor.  For  this  incommod- 
ing guest  of  a  day,  they  pillage  their  garden,  bully 
their  children  and  servants,  and  neglect  their 
work.  Such  conduct  is  not  only  wrong,  it  is  im- 
politic. One  should  have  the  courage  to  remain 
what  he  is,  in  the  face  of  all  comers. 

The  worldly  spirit  is  full  of  impertinences.  Here 
is  a  home  which  has  formed  characters  of  mark,  and 


THE    LIFE    OF   THE    HOME       133 

is  forming  them  yet.  The  people,  the  furnishings, 
the  customs  are  all  in  harmony.  By  marriage  or 
through  relations  of  business  or  pleasure,  the 
worldly  spirit  enters.  It  finds  everything  out  of 
date,  awkward,  too  simple,  lacking  the  modern 
touch.  At  first  it  restricts  itself  to  criticism  and 
light  raillery.  But  this  is  the  dangerous  moment. 
Look  out  for  yourself;  here  is  the  enemy!  If  you 
so  much  as  listen  to  his  reasonings,  to-morrow  you 
will  sacrifice  a  piece  of  furniture,  the  next  day  a 
good  old  tradition,  and  so  one  by  one  the  family 
heirlooms  dear  to  the  heart  will  go  to  the  bric-a-brac 
dealer  —  and  filial  piety  with  them. 

In  the  midst  of  your  new  habits  and  in  the 
changed  atmosphere,  your  friends  of  other  days, 
your  old  relatives,  will  be  expatriated.  Your  next 
step  will  be  to  lay  them  aside  in  their  turn;  the 
worldly  spirit  leaves  the  old  out  of  consideration. 
At  last,  established  in  an  absolutely  transformed 
setting,  even  you  will  view  yourself  with  amaze- 
ment. Nothing  will  be  familiar,  but  surely  it  will 
be  correct ;  at  least  the  world  will  be  satisfied !  — 
Ah  !  that  is  where  you  are  mistaken  !  After  having 
made  you  cast  out  pure  treasure  as  so  much  junk,  it 
will  find  that  your  borrowed  livery  fits  you  ill,  and 


134  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

will  hasten  to  make  you  sensible  of  the  ridiculous- 
ness of  the  situation.  Much  better  have  had  from 
the  beginning  the  courage  of  your  convictions,  and 
have  defended  your  home. 

Many  young  people  when  they  marry,  listen  to 
this  voice  of  the  world.  Their  parents  have  given 
them  the  example  of  a  modest  life;  but  the  new 
generation  thinks  it  affirms  its  rights  to  existence 
and  liberty,  by  repudiating  ways  in  its  eyes  too 
patriarchal.  So  these  young  folks  make  efforts  to 
set  themselves  up  lavishly  in  the  latest  fashion,  and 
rid  themselves  of  useless  property  at  dirt-cheap 
prices.  Instead  of  filling  their  houses  with  objects 
which  say :  Remember !  they  garnish  them  with 
quite  new  furnishings  that  as  yet  have  no  meaning. 
Wait,  I  am  wrong ;  these  things  are  often  symbols, 
as  it  were,  of  a  facile  and  superficial  existence.  In 
their  midst  one  breathes  a  certain  heady  vapor  of 
mundanity.  They  recall  the  life  outside,  the  tur- 
moil, the  rush.  And  were  one  sometimes  disposed 
to  forget  this  life,  they  would  call  back  his  wandering 
thought  and  say  :  Remember  !  —  in  another  sense  : 
Do  not  forget  your  appointment  at  the  club,  the 
play,  the  races  !  The  home,  then,  becomes  a  sort  of 
half-way  house  where  one  comes  to  rest  a  little 


THE   LIFE   OF   THE   HOME       135 

between  two  prolonged  absences  ;  it  isn't  a  good 
place  to  stay.  As  it  has  no  soul,  it  does  not 
speak  to  yours.  Time  to  eat  and  sleep,  and  then 
off  again !  Otherwise  you  become  as  dull  as  a 
hermit. 

We  are  all  acquainted  with  people  who  have  a 
rage  for  being  abroad,  who  think  the  world  would 
no  longer  go  round  if  they  didn't  figure  on  all  sides 
of  it.  To  stay  at  home  is  penal ;  there  they  cease 
to  be  in  view.  A  horror  of  home  life  possesses 
them  to  such  a  degree  that  they  would  rather  pay 
to  be  bored  outside  than  be  amused  gratuitously 
within. 

In  this  way  society  slowly  gravitates  toward  life 
in  herds,  which  must  not  be  confounded  with  public 
life.  The  life  in  herds  is  somewhat  like  that  of 
swarms  of  flies  in  the  sun.  Nothing  so  much  resem- 
bles the  worldly  life  of  a  man  as  the  worldly  life  of 
another  man.  And  this  universal  banality  destroys 
the  very  essence  of  public  spirit.  One  need  not 
journey  far  to  discover  the  ravages  made  in  modern 
society  by  the  spirit  of  worldliness  ;  and  if  we  have 
so  little  foundation,  so  little  equilibrium,  calm  good 
sense  and  initiative,  one  of  the  chief  reasons  lies  in 
the  undermining  of  the  home  life.  The  masses 


136  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

have  timed  their  pace  by  that  of  people  of  fashion. 
They  too  have  become  worldly.  Nothing  can  be  more 
so  than  to  quit  one's  own  hearth  for  the  life  of  saloons. 
The  squalor  and  misery  of  the  homes  is  not  enough 
to  explain  the  current  which  carries  each  man  away 
from  his  own.  Why  does  the  peasant  desert  for  the 
inn  the  house  that  his  father  and  grandfather  found 
so  comfortable  ?  It  has  remained  the  same.  There 
is  the  same  fire  in  the  same  chimney.  Whence  comes 
it  that  it  lights  only  an  incomplete  circle,  when  in 
olden  times  young  and  old  sat  shoulder  to  shoulder? 
Something  has  changed  in  the  minds  of  men. 
Yielding  to  dangerous  impulses,  they  have  broken 
with  simplicity.  The  fathers  have  quitted  their 
post  of  honor,  the  wives  grow  dull  beside  the  soli- 
tary hearth,  and  the  children  quarrel  while  waiting 
their  turn  to  go  abroad,  each  after  his  own  fancy. 

We  must  learn  again  to  live  the  home  life,  to 
value  our  domestic  traditions.  A  pious  care  has 
preserved  certain  monuments  of  the  past.  So  an- 
tique dress,  provincial  dialects,  old  folk  songs  have 
found  appreciative  hands  to  gather  them  up  before 
they  should  disappear  from  the  earth.  What  a 
good  deed,  to  guard  these  crumbs  of  a  great  past, 
these  vestiges  of  the  souls  of  our  ancestors  !  Let  us 


THE   LIFE   OF   THE   HOME       137 

do  the  same  for  our  family  traditions,  save  and 
guard  as  much  as  possible  of  the  patriarchal,  what- 
ever its  form. 

BUT  not  everyone  has  traditions  to  keep. 
All  -  the  more  reason  for  redoubling  the 
effort  to  constitute  and  foster  a  family 
life.  And  to  do  this  there  is  need  neither  of  num- 
bers nor  a  rich  establishment.  To  create  a  home 
you  must  have  the  spirit  of  home.  Just  as  the 
smallest  village  may  have  its  history,  its  moral 
stamp,  so  the  smallest  home  may  have  its  soul. 
Oh  !  the  spirit  of  places,  the  atmosphere  which  sur- 
rounds us  in  human  dwellings  !  What  a  world  of 
mystery  !  Here,  even  on  the  threshold  the  cold 
begins  to  penetrate,  you  are  ill  at  ease,  something 
intangible  repulses  you.  There,  no  sooner  does  the 
door  shut  you  in  than  friendliness  and  good  humor 
envelop  you.  It  is  said  that  walls  have  ears.  They 
have  also  voices,  a  mute  eloquence.  Everything 
that  a  dwelling  contains  is  bathed  in  an  ether  of 
personality.  And  I  find  proof  of  its  quality  even  in 
the  apartments  of  bachelors  and  solitary  women. 
What  an  abyss  between  one  room  and  another 
room !  Here,  all  is  dead,  indifferent,  common- 


138  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

place :  the  device  of  the  owner  is  written  all  over 
it,  even  in  his  fashion  of  arranging  his  photographs 
and  books :  All  is  the  same  to  me  !  There,  one 
breathes  in  animation,  a  contagious  joy  in  life. 
The  visitor  hears  repeated  in  countless  fashions : 
"Whoever  you  are,  guest  of  an  hour,  I  wish  you 
well,  peace  be  with  you  !  " 

Words  can  do  little  justice  to  the  subject  of 
home,  tell  little  about  the  effect  of  a  favorite  flower 
in  the  window,  or  the  charm  of  an  old  armchair 
where  the  grandfather  used  to  sit,  offering  his  wrin- 
kled hands  to  the  kisses  of  chubby  children.  Poor 
moderns,  always  moving  or  remodeling !  We 
who  from  transforming  our  cities,  our  houses,  our 
customs  and  creeds,  have  no  longer  where  to  lay 
our  heads,  let  us  not  add  to  the  pathos  and  empti- 
ness of  our  changeful  existence  by  abandoning  the 
life  of  the  home.  Let  us  light  again  the  flame  put 
out  on  our  hearths,  make  sanctuaries  for  ourselves, 
warm  nests  where  the  children  may  grow  into  men, 
where  love  may  find  privacy,  old  age  repose,  prayer 
an  altar,  and  the  fatherland  a  cult ! 


XI 

SIMPLE  BEAUTY 

SOMEONE  may  protest  against  the  nature  of 
the  simple  life  in  the  name  of  esthetics, 
or  oppose  to   ours    the  theory  of  the  ser- 
vice of  luxury  —  that  providence  of  busi- 
ness, fostering  mother  of  arts,  and  grace  of  civilized 
society.     We  shall  try,  briefly,  to  anticipate  these 
objections. 

It  will  no  doubt  have  been  evident  that  the  spirit 
which  animates  these  pages  is  not  utilitarian.  It 
would  be  an  error  to  suppose  that  the  simplicity  we 
seek  has  anything  in  common  with  that  which 
misers  impose  upon  themselves  through  cupidity,  or 
narrow-minded  people  through  false  austerity.  To 
the  former  the  simple  life  is  the  one  that  costs 
least ;  to  the  latter  it  is  a  flat  and  colorless  exist- 
ence, whose  merit  lies  in  depriving  one's  self  of 
everything  bright,  smiling,  seductive. 

It  displeases  us  not  a  whit  that  people  of  large 
means  should  put  their  fortune  into  circulation  in- 
stead of  hoarding  it,  so  giving  life  to  commerce  and 
139 


140  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

the  fine  arts.  That  is  using  one's  privileges  to  good 
advantage.  What  we  would  combat  is  foolish  prod- 
igality, the  selfish  use  of  wealth,  and  above  all  the 
quest  of  the  superfluous  on  the  part  of  those  who 
have  the  greatest  need  of  taking  thought  for  the 
necessary.  The  lavishness  of  a  Maecenas  could  not 
have  the  same  effect  in  a  society  as  that  of  a  com- 
mon spendthrift  who  astonishes  his  contemporaries 
by  the  magnificence  of  his  life  and  the  folly  of  his 
waste.  In  these  two  cases  the  same  term  means 
very  different  things  —  to  scatter  money  broadcast 
does  not  say  it  all ;  there  are  ways  of  doing  it  which 
ennoble  men,  and  others  which  degrade  them. 
Besides,  to  scatter  money  supposes  that  one  is  well 
provided  with  it.  When  the  love  of  sumptuous  liv- 
ing takes  possession  of  those  whose  means  are  lim- 
ited, the  matter  becomes  strangely  altered.  And  a 
very  striking  characteristic  of  our  time  is  the  rage 
for  scattering  broadcast  which  the  very  people  have 
who  ought  to  husband  their  resources.  Munificence 
is  a  benefit  to  society,  that  we  grant  willingly.  Let 
us  even  allow  that  the  prodigality  of  certain  rich 
men  is  a  safety-valve  for  the  escape  of  the  super- 
abundant :  we  shall  not  attempt  to  gainsay  it.  Our 
contention  is  that  too  many  people  meddle  with  the 


SIMPLE   BEAUTY 

safety-valve  when  to  practice  economy  is  the  part  of 
both  their  interest  and  their  duty  :  their  extrava- 
gance is  a  private  misfortune  and  a  public  danger. 

SO  much  for  the  utility  of  luxury. 
We  now  wish  to  explain  ourselves  upon  the 
question  of  esthetics  —  oh  !  very  modestly, 
and  without  trespassing  on  the  ground  of  the  special- 
ists. Through  a  too  common  illusion,  simplicity 
and  beauty  are  considered  as  rivals.  But  simple  is 
not  synonymous  with  ugly,  any  more  than  sumptu- 
ous, stylish  and  costly  are  synonymous  with  beautiful. 
Our  eyes  are  wounded  by  the  crying  spectacle  of 
gaudy  ornament,  venal  art  and  senseless  and  grace- 
less luxury.  Wealth  coupled  with  bad  taste  some- 
times makes  us  regret  that  so  much  money  is  in 
circulation  to  provoke  the  creation  of  such  a  prodi- 
gality of  horrors.  Our  contemporary  art  suifers  as 
much  from  the  want  of  simplicity  as  does  our  liter- 
ature—  too  much  in  it  that  is  irrelevant,  over- 
wrought, falsely  imagined.  Rarely  is  it  given  us  to 
contemplate  in  line,  form,  or  color,  that  simplicity 
allied  to  perfection  which  commands  the  eyes  as 
evidence  does  the  mind.  We  need  to  be  rebaptized 
in  the  ideal  purity  of  immortal  beauty  which  puts  its 


142  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

seal  on  the  masterpieces ;  one  shaft  of  its  radiance 
is  worth  more  than  all  our  pompous  exhibitions. 

YET  what  we  now  have  most  at  heart  is  to 
speak  of  the  ordinary  esthetics  of  life,  of 
the  care  one  should  bestow  upon  the  adorn- 
ment of  his  dwelling  and  his  person,  giving  to  exist- 
ence that  luster  without  which  it  lacks  charm.  For 
it  is  not  a  matter  of  indifference  whether  man  pays 
attention  to  these  superfluous  necessities  or  whether 
he  does  not :  it  is  by  them  that  we  know  whether 
he  puts  soul  into  his  work.  Far  from  considering 
it  as  wasteful  to  give  time  and  thought  to  the  per- 
fecting, beautifying  and  poetizing  of  forms,  I  think 
we  should  spend  as  much  as  we  can  upon  it.  Na- 
ture gives  us  her  example,  and  the  man  who  should 
affect  contempt  for  the  ephemeral  splendor  of  beauty 
with  which  we  garnish  our  brief  days,  would  lose 
sight  of  the  intentions  of  Him  who  has  put  the 
same  care  and  love  into  the  painting  of  the  lily  of 
an  hour  and  the  eternal  hills. 

But  we  must  not  fall  into  the  gross  error  of  con- 
founding true  beauty  with  that  which  has  only  the 
name.  The  beauty  and  poetry  of  existence  lie  in 
the  understanding  we  have  of  it.  Our  home,  our 


SIMPLE   BEAUTY  143 

table,  our  dress  should  be  the  interpreters  of  inten- 
tions. That  these  intentions  be  so  expressed,  it  is 
first  necessary  to  have  them,  and  he  who  possesses 
them  makes  them  evident  through  the  simplest 
means.  One  need  not  be  rich  to  give  grace  and 
charm  to  his  habit  and  his  habitation  :  it  suffices  to 
have  good  taste  and  good-will.  We  come  here  to 
a  point  very  important  to  everybody,  but  perhaps  of 
more  interest  to  women  than  to  men. 

Those  who  would  have  women  conceal  themselves 
in  coarse  garments  of  the  shapeless  uniformity  of 
bags,  violate  nature  in  her  very  heart,  and  misun- 
derstand completely  the  spirit  of  things.  If  dress 
were  only  a  precaution  to  shelter  us  from  cold  or 
rain,  a  piece  of  sacking  or  the  skin  of  a  beast  would 
answer.  But  it  is  vastly  more  than  this.  Man  puts 
himself  entire  into  all  that  he  does ;  he  transforms 
into  types  the  things  that  serve  him.  The  dress  is 
not  simply  a  covering,  it  is  a  symbol.  I  call  to  wit- 
ness the  rich  flowering  of  national  and  provincial 
costumes,  and  those  worn  by  our  early  corporations, 
A  woman's  toilette,  too,  has  something  to  say  to  us. 
The  more  meaning  there  is  in  it,  the  greater  its 
worth.  To  be  truly  beautiful,  it  must  tell  us  of 
beautiful  things,  things  personal  and  veritable. 


144  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

Spend  all  the  money  you  possess  upon  it,  if  its  form 
is  determined  by  chance  or  custom,  if  it  has  no  re- 
lation to  her  who  wears  it,  it  is  only  toggery,  a 
domino.  Ultra-fashionable  dress,  which  completely 
masks  feminine  personality  under  designs  of  pure 
convention,  despoils  it  of  its  principal  attraction. 
From  this  abuse  it  comes  about  that  many  things 
which  women  admire  do  as  much  wrong  to  their 
beauty  as  to  the  purses  of  then*  husbands  and 
fathers.  What  would  you  say  of  a  young  gir] 
who  expressed  her  thoughts  in  terms  very  choice, 
indeed,  but  taken  word  for  word  from  a  phrase-book  ? 
What  charm  could  you  find  in  this  borrowed  lan- 
guage ?  The  effect  of  toilettes  well-designed  in 
themselves  but  seen  again  and  again  on  all  women 
indiscriminately,  is  precisely  the  same. 

I  can  not  resist  citing  here  a  passage  from  Ca- 
mille  Lemonnier,  that  harmonizes  with  my  idea, 

"  Nature  has  given  to  the  fingers  of  woman  a 
charming  art,  which  she  knows  by  instinct,  and 
which  is  peculiarly  her  own  —  as  silk  to  the  worm, 
and  lace-work  to  the  swift  and  subtle  spider.  She 
is  the  poet,  the  interpreter  of  her  own  grace  and  in- 
genuousness, the  spinner  of  the  mystery  in  which 
her  wish  to  please  arrays  itself.  All  the  talent  she 


SIMPLE    BEAUTY  145 

expends  in  her  effort  to  equal  man  in  the  other 
arts,  is  never  worth  the  spirit  and  conception 
wrought  out  through  a  bit  of  stuff  in  her  skillful 
hands. 

"  Well,  I  wish  that  this  art  were  more  honored 
than  it  is.  As  education  should  consist  in  thinking 
with  one's  mind,  feeling  with  one's  heart,  express- 
ing the  little  personalities  of  the  inmost,  invisible  /, 
—  which  on  the  contrary  are  repressed,  leveled 
down  by  conformity, —  I  would  that  the  young  girl 
in  her  novitiate  of  womanhood,  the  future  mother, 
might  early  become  the  little  exponent  of  this  art 
of  the  toilet,  her  own  dressmaker  in  short  —  she 
who  one  day  shall  make  the  dresses  of  her  children. 
But  with  the  taste  and  the  gift  to  improvise,  to 
express  herself  in  that  masterpiece  of  feminine  per- 
sonality and  skill  —  a  goivn,  without  which  a  woman 
is  no  more  than  a  bundle  of  rags." 

The  dress  you  have  made  for  yourself  is  almost 
always  the  most  becoming,  and,  however  that  may 
be,  it  is  the  one  that  pleases  you  most.  Women  of 
leisure  too  often  forget  this  ;  working  women,  also, 
in  city  and  country  alike.  Since  these  last  are  cos- 
tumed by  dressmakers  and  milliners,  in  very  doubt- 
ful imitation  of  the  modish  world,  grace  has  almost 


146  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

disappeared  from  their  dress.  And  has  anything 
more  surely  the  gift  to  please  than  the  fresh  appari- 
tion of  a  young  working  girl  or  a  daughter  of  the 
fields,  wearing  the  costume  of  her  country,  and 
beautiful  from  her  simplicity  alone? 

These  same  reflections  might  be  applied  to  the 
fashion  of  decorating  and  arranging  our  houses.  If 
there  are  toilettes  which  reveal  an  entire  concep- 
tion of  life,  hats  that  are  poems,  knots  of  ribbon 
that  are  veritable  works  of  art,  so  there  are  interiors 
which  after  their  manner  speak  to  the  mind.  Why, 
under  pretext  of  decorating  our  homes,  do  we  de- 
stroy that  personal  character  which  always  has  such 
value  ?  Why  have  our  sleeping-rooms  conform  to 
those  of  hotels,  our  reception-rooms  to  waiting- 
rooms,  by  making  predominant  a  uniform  type  of 
official  beauty  ? 

WThat  a  pity  to  go  through  the  houses  of  a  city, 
the  cities  of  a  country,  the  countries  of  a  vast  conti- 
nent, and  encounter  everywhere  certain  forms,  iden- 
tical, inevitable,  exasperating  by  their  repetition  ! 
How  esthetics  would  gain  by  more  simplicity  !  In- 
stead of  this  luxury  in  job  lots,  all  these  decorations, 
pretentious  but  vapid  from  iteration,  we  should  have 
an  infinite  variety ;  happy  improvisations  would 


SIMPLE   BEAUTY  147 

strike  our  eyes,  the  unexpected  in  a  thousand 
forms  would  rejoice  our  hearts,  and  we  should  re- 
discover the  secret  of  impressing  on  a  drapery  or  a 
piece  of  furniture  that  stamp  of  human  personality 
which  makes  certain  antiques  priceless. 

Let  us  pass  at  last  to  things  simpler  still ;  I  mean 
the  little  details  of  housekeeping  which  many 
young  people  of  our  day  fhid  so  unpoetical.  Their 
contempt  for  material  things,  for  the  humble  cares  a 
house  demands,  arises  from  a  confusion  very  com- 
mon but  none  the  less  unfortunate,  which  comes 
from  the  belief  that  beauty  and  poetry  are  within 
some  things,  while  others  lack  them ;  that  some 
occupations  are  distinguished  and  agreeable,  such  as 
cultivating  letters,  playing  the  harp ;  and  that 
others  are  menial  and  disagreeable,  like  blacking 
shoes,  sweeping,  and  watching  the  pot  boil.  Child- 
ish error  !  Neither  harp  nor  broom  has  anything  to 
do  with  it ;  all  depends  on  the  hand  in  which  they 
rest  and  the  spirit  that  moves  it.  Poetry  is  not  in 
things,  it  is  in  us.  It  must  be  impressed  on  objects 
from  without,  as  the  sculptor  impresses  his  dream  on 
the  marble.  If  our  life  and  our  occupations  remain 
too  often  without  charm,  in  spite  of  any  outward 
distinction  they  may  have,  it  is  because  we  have 


148  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

not  known  how  to  put  anything  into  them.  The 
height  of  art  is  to  make  the  inert  live,  and  to  tame 
the  savage.  I  would  have  our  young  girls  apply 
themselves  to  the  development  of  the  truly  femi- 
nine art  of  giving  a  soul  to  things  which  have  none. 
The  triumph  of  woman's  charm  is  in  that  work. 
Only  a  woman  knows  how  to  put  into  a  home  that 
indefinable  something  whose  virtue  has  made  the 
poet  say,  "The  housetop  rejoices  and  is  glad." 
They  say  there  are  no  such  things  as  fairies,  or  that 
there  are  fairies  no  longer,  but  they  know  not  what 
they  say.  The  original  of  the  fairies  sung  by  poets 
was  found,  and  is  still,  among  those  amiable  mortals 
who  knead  bread  with  energy,  mend  rents  with 
cheerfulness,  nurse  the  sick  with  smiles,  put  witch- 
ery into  a  ribbon  and  genius  into  a  stew. 

IT  is  indisputable  that  the  culture  of  the  fine 
arts  has  something  refining  about  it,  and  that 
our  thoughts  and  acts  are  in  the  end  impreg- 
nated with  that  which  strikes  our  eyes.     But  the 
exercise  of  the  arts  and  the  contemplation  of  their 
products  is  a  restricted  privilege.     It  is  not  given  to 
everyone  to  possess,  to  comprehend  or  to  create  fine 
things.     Yet  there  is  a  kind  of  ministering  beauty 


SIMPLE   BEAUTY  149 

which  may  make  its  way  everywhere  —  the  beauty 
which  springs  from  the  hands  of  our  wives  and 
daughters.  Without  it,  what  is  the  most  richly 
decorated  house  ?  A  dead  dwelling-place.  With 
it  the  barest  home  has  life  and  brightness.  Among 
the  forces  capable  of  transforming  the  will  and 
increasing  happiness,  there  is  perhaps  none  in  more 
universal  use  than  this  beauty.  It  knows  how  to 
shape  itself  by  means  of  the  crudest  tools,  in  the 
midst  of  the  greatest  difficulties.  When  the  dwell- 
ing is  cramped,  the  purse  limited,  the  table  modest, 
a  woman  who  has  the  gift,  finds  a  way  to  make  order, 
fitness  and  convenience  reign  in  her  house.  She 
puts  care  and  art  into  everything  she  undertakes. 
To  do  well  what  one  has  to  do  is  not  in  her  eyes 
the  privilege  of  the  rich,  but  the  right  of  all.  That 
is  her  aim,  and  she  knows  how  to  give  her  home 
a  dignity  and  an  attractiveness  that  the  dwellings  of 
princes,  if  everything  is  left  to  mercenaries,  cannot 
possess. 

Thus  understood,  life  quickly  shows  itself  rich  in 
hidden  beauties,  in  attractions  and  satisfactions  close 
at  hand.  To  be  one's  self,  to  realize  in  one's 
natural  place  the  kind  of  beauty  which  is  fitting 
there  —  this  is  the  ideal.  .  How  the  mission  of 


150  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

woman  broadens  and  deepens  in  significance  when 
it  is  summed  up  in  this :  to  put  a  soul  into  the  in- 
animate, and  to  give  to  this  gracious  spirit  of  things 
those  subtle  and  winsome  outward  manifestations 
to  which  the  most  brutish  of  human  beings  is  sen- 
sible. Is  not  this  better  than  to  covet  what  one 
has  not,  and  to  give  one's  self  up  to  longings  for  a 
poor  imitation  of  others'  finery  ? 


XII 

PRIDE    AND    SIMPLICITY   IN    THE   INTER- 
COURSE  OF   MEN 

IT  would  perhaps  be  difficult  to  find  a  more 
convincing  example  than  pride  to  show  that 
the  obstacles  to  a  better,  stronger,  serener 
life  are  rather  in  us  than  in  circumstances. 
The  diversity,  and  more  than  that,  the  contrasts  in 
social  conditions  give  rise  inevitably  to  all  sorts  of 
conflicts.  Yet  in  spite  of  this  how  greatly  would 
social  relations  be  simplified,  if  we  put  another  spirit 
into  mapping  out  our  plan  of  outward  necessities  ! 
Be  well  persuaded  that  it  is  not  primarily  differ- 
ences of  class  and  occupation,  differences  in  the 
outward  manifestations  of  their  destinies,  which 
embroil  men.  If  such  were  the  case,  we  should 
find  an  idyllic  peace  reigning  among  colleagues, 
and  all  those  whose  interests  and  lot  are  virtually 
equivalent.  On  the  contrary,  as  everyone  knows, 
the  most  violent  shocks  come  when  equal  meets 

equal,  and    there  is  no    war  worse  than  civil  war. 
151 


152  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

But  that  which  above  all  things  else  hinders  men 
from  good  understanding,  is  pride.  It  makes  a  man 
a  hedgehog,  wounding  everyone  he  touches.  Let 
us  speak  first  of  the  pride  of  the  great. 

What  offends  me  in  this  rich  man  passing  in  his 
carriage,  is  not  his  equipage,  his  dress,  or  the  num- 
ber and  splendor  of  his  retinue :  it  is  his  contempt. 
That  he  possesses  a  great  fortune  does  not  disturb 
me,  unless  I  am  badly  disposed :  but  that  he 
splashes  me  with  mud,  drives  over  my  body,  shows 
by  his  whole  attitude  that  I  count  for  nothing  in 
his  eyes  because  I  am  not  rich  like  himself —  this  is 
what  disturbs  me,  and  righteously.  He  heaps  suf- 
fering upon  me  needlessly.  He  humiliates  and 
insults  me  gratuitously.  It  is  not  what  is  vulgar 
within  me,  but  what  is  noblest  that  asserts  itself  in 
the  face  of  this  offensive  pride.  Do  not  accuse  me 
of  envy;  I  feel  none;  it  is  my  manhood  that  is 
wounded.  We  need  not  search  far  to  illustrate 
these  ideas.  Every  man  of  any  acquaintance  with 
life  has  had  numerous  experiences  which  will  justify 
our  dictum  in  his  eyes.  In  certain  communities 
devoted  to  material  interests,  the  pride  of  wealth 
dominates  to  such  a  degree  that  men  are  quoted 
like  values  in  the  stock  market.  The  esteem  in 


PRIDE   AND   SIMPLICITY          153 

which  a  man  is  held  is  proportionate  to  the  contents 
of  his  strong  box.  Here  "Society  "  is  made  up  of 
big  fortunes,  the  middle  class  of  medium  fortunes. 
Then  come  people  who  have  little,  then  those  who 
have  nothing.  All  intercourse  is  regulated  by  this 
principle.  And  the  relatively  rich  man  who  has 
shown  his  disdain  for  those  less  opulent,  is  crushed 
in  turn  by  the  contempt  of  his  superiors  in  fortune. 
So  the  madness  of  comparison  rages  from  the  sum- 
mit to  the  base.  Such  an  atmosphere  is  ready  to 
perfection  for  the  nurture  of  the  worst  feeling ; 
yet  it  is  not  wealth,  but  the  spirit  of  the  wealthy 
that  must  be  arraigned. 

Many  rich  men  are  free  from  this  gross  conception 
—  especially  is  this  true  of  those  who  from  father 
to  son  are  accustomed  to  ease  —  yet  they  sometimes 
forget  that  there  is  a  certain  delicacy  in  not  making 
contrasts  too  marked.  Suppose  there  is  no  wrong 
in  enjoying  a  large  superfluity :  is  it  indispensable 
to  display  it,  to  wound  the  eyes  of  those  who  lack 
necessities,  to  flaunt  one's  magnificence  at  the  doors 
of  poverty  ?  Good  taste  and  a  sort  of  modesty 
always  hinder  a  well  man  from  talking  of  his  fine 
appetite,  his  sound  sleep,  his  exuberance  of  spirits, 
in  the  presence  of  one  dying  of  consumption. 


154  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

Many  of  the  rich  do  not  exercise  this  tact,  and 
so  are  greatly  wanting  in  pity  and  discretion.  Are 
they  not  unreasonable  to  complain  of  envy,  after 
having  done  everything  to  provoke  it  ? 

But  the  greatest  lack  is  that  want  of  discernment 
which  leads  men  to  ground  their  pride  in  their  for- 
tune. To  begin  with,  it  is  a  childish  confusion  of 
thought  to  consider  wealth  as  a  personal  quality ;  it 
would  be  hard  to  find  a  more  ingenuous  fashion  of 
deceiving  one's  self  as  to  the  relative  value  of  the 
container  and  the  thing  contained.  I  have  no  wish 
to  dwell  on  this  question :  it  is  too  painful.  And 
yet  one  cannot  resist  saying  to  those  concerned  : 
"  Take  care,  do  not  confound  what  you  possess  with 
what  you  are.  Go  learn  to  know  the  under  side  of 
worldly  splendor,  that  you  may  feel  its  moral  misery 
and  its  puerility."  The  traps  pride  sets  for  us  are 
too  ridiculous.  We  should  distrust  association  with 
a  thing  that  make  us  hateful  to  our  neighbors  and 
robs  us  of  clearness  of  vision. 

He  who  yields  to  the  pride  of  riches,  forgets  this 
other  point,  the  most  important  of  all  —  that  posses- 
sion is  a  public  trust.  Without  doubt,  individual 
wealth  is  as  legitimate  as  individual  existence  and 
liberty.  These  things  are  inseparable,  and  it  is  a 


PRIDE    AND   SIMPLICITY          155 

dream  pregnant  with  dangers  that  offers  battle  to 
such  fundamentals  of  life.  But  the  individual 
touches  society  at  every  point,  and  all  he  does 
should  be  done  with  the  whole  in  view.  Possession, 
then,  is  less  a  privilege  of  which  to  be  proud  than  a 
charge  whose  gravity  should  be  felt.  As  there  is  an 
apprenticeship,  often  very  difficult  to  serve,  for  the 
exercise  of  every  social  office,  so  this  profession  we 
call  wealth  demands  an  apprenticeship.  To  know 
how  to  be  rich  is  an  art,  and  one  of  the  least  easy  of 
arts  to  master.  Most  people,  rich  and  poor  alike, 
imagine  that  in  opulence  one  has  nothing  to  do  but 
to  take  life  easy.  That  is  why  so  few  men  know  how 
to  be  rich.  In  the  hands  of  too  many,  wealth,  ac- 
cording to  the  genial  and  redoubtable  comparison  of 
Luther,  is  like  a  harp  in  the  hoofs  of  an  ass.  They 
have  no  idea  of  the  manner  of  its  use. 

So  when  we  encounter  a  man  at  once  rich  and 
simple,  that  is  to  say,  who  considers  his  wealth  as  a 
means  of  fulfilling  his  mission  in  the  world,  we 
should  offer  him  our  homage,  for  he  is  surely  mark- 
worthy.  He  has  surmounted  obstacles,  borne  trials, 
and  triumphed  in  temptations  both  gross  and  subtle. 
He  does  not  fail  to  discriminate  between  the  con- 
tents of  his  pocketbook  and  the  contents  of  his 


156  THE    SIMPLE   LIFE 

head  or  heart,  and  he  does  not  estimate  his  fellow- 
men  in  figures.  His  exceptional  position,  instead 
of  exalting  him,  makes  him  humble,  for  he  is  very 
sensible  of  how  far  he  falls  short  of  reaching  the 
level  of  his  duty.  He  has  remained  a  man  —  that 
says  it  all.  He  is  accessible,  helpful,  and  far  from 
making  of  his  wealth  a  barrier  to  separate  him  from 
other  men,  he  makes  it  a  means  for  coming  nearer 
and  nearer  to  them.  Although  the  profession  of 
riches  has  been  so  dishonored  by  the  selfish  and  the 
proud,  such  a  man  as  this  always  makes  his  worth 
felt  by  everyone  not  devoid  of  a  sense  of  justice. 
Each  of  us  who  comes  in  contact  with  him  and  sees 
him  live,  is  forced  to  look  within  and  ask  himself 
the  question,  "  What  would  become  of  me  in  such 
a  situation  ?  Should  I  keep  this  modesty,  this 
naturalness,  this  uprightness  which  uses  its  own  as 
though  it  belonged  to  others  ?  "  So  long  as  there 
is  a  human  society  in  the  world,  so  long  as  there 
are  bitterly  conflicting  interests,  so  long  as  envy 
and  egoism  exist  on  the  earth,  nothing  will  be 
worthier  of  honor  than  wealth  permeated  by  the 
spirit  of  simplicity.  And  it  will  do  more  than  make 
itself  forgiven ;  it  will  make  itself  beloved. 


PRIDE   AND   SIMPLICITY          157 

MORE  dangerous  than  pride  inspired  by 
wealth  is  that  inspired  by  power,  and 
I  mean  by  the  word  every  prerogative 
that  one  man  has  over  another,  be  it  unlimited  or 
restricted.  I  see  no  means  of  preventing  the  exist- 
ence in  the  world  of  men  of  unequal  authority. 
Every  organism  supposes  a  hierarchy  of  powers  — 
we  shall  never  escape  from  that  law.  But  I  fear 
that  if  the  love  of  power  is  so  widespread,  the  spirit 
of  power  is  almost  impossible  to  find.  From  wrong 
understanding  and  misuse  of  it,  those  who  keep 
even  a  fraction  of  authority  almost  everywhere  suc- 
ceed in  compromising  it. 

Power  exercises  a  great  influence  over  him  who 
holds  it.  A  head  must  be  very  well  balanced  not 
to  be  disturbed  by  it.  The  sort  of  dementia  which 
took  possession  of  the  Roman  emperors  in  the  time 
of  their  world -wide  rule,  is  a  universal  malady 
whose  symptoms  belong  to  all  times.  In  every 
man  there  sleeps  a  tyrant,  awaiting  only  a  favorable 
occasion  for  waking.  Now  the  tyrant  is  the  worst 
enemy  of  authority,  because  he  furnishes  us  its  in- 
tolerable caricature,  whence  come  a  multitude  of 
social  complications,  collisions  and  hatreds.  Every 
man  who  says  to  those  dependent  on  him  :  "  Do 


158  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

this  because  it  is  my  will  and  pleasure,"  does  ill 
There  is  within  each  one  of  us  something  that  in- 
vites us  to  resist  personal  power,  and  this  some- 
thing is  very  respectable.  For  at  bottom  we  are 
equal,  and  there  is  no  one  who  has  the  right  to  ex- 
act obedience  from  me  because  he  is  he  and  I  am 
I :  if  he  does  so,  his  command  degrades  me,  and  I 
have  no  right  to  suffer  myself  to  be  degraded. 

One  must  have  lived  in  schools,  in  work -shops,  in 
the  army,  in  Government  offices,  he  must  have 
closely  followed  the  relations  between  masters  and 
servants,  have  observed  a  little  everywhere  where 
the  supremacy  of  man  exercises  itself  over  man,  to 
form  any  idea  of  the  injury  done  by  those  who  use 
power  arrogantly.  Of  every  free  soul  they  make 
a  slave  soul,  which  is  to  say  the  soul  of  a  rebel. 
And  it  appears  that  this  result,  with  its  social  dis- 
aster, is  most  certain  when  he  who  commands  is 
least  removed  from  the  station  of  him  who  obeys. 
The  most  implacable  tyrant  is  the  tyrant  himself 
under  authority.  Foremen  and  overseers  put  more 
violence  into  their  dealings  than  superintendents 
and  employers.  The  corporal  is  generally  harsher 
than  the  colonel.  In  certain  families  where  madam 
has  not  much  more  education  than  her  maid,  the 


PRIDE   AND   SIMPLICITY         159 

relations  between  them  are  those  of  the  convict  and 
his  warder.  And  woe  everywhere  to  him  who  falls 
into  the  hands  of  a  subaltern  drunk  with  his  author- 
ity ! 

We  forget  that  the  first  duty  of  him  who  exer- 
cises power  is  humility.  Haughtiness  is  not  author- 
ity. It  is  not  we  who  are  the  law ;  the  law  is  ovey 
our  heads.  We  only  interpret  it,  but  to  make  it 
valid  in  the  eyes  of  others,  we  must  first  be  subject 
to  it  ourselves.  To  command  and  to  obey  in  the 
society  of  men,  are  after  all  but  two  forms  of  the 
same  virtue  —  voluntary  servitude.  If  you  are  not 
obeyed,  it  is  generally  because  you  have  not  yourself 
obeyed  first. 

The  secret  of  moral  ascendancy  rests  with  those 
who  rule  with  simplicity.  They  soften  by  the  spirit 
the  harshness  of  the  fact.  Their  authority  is  not 
in  shoulder-straps,  titles  or  disciplinary  measures. 
They  make  use  of  neither  ferule  nor  threats,  yet 
they  achieve  everything.  Why  ?  Because  we  feel 
that  they  are  themselves  ready  for  everything. 
That  which  confers  upon  a  man  the  right  to  de- 
mand of  another  the  sacrifice  of  his  time,  his 
money,  his  passions,  even  his  life,  is  not  only  that 
he  is  resolved  upon  all  these  sacrifices  himself,  but 


160  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

that  he  has  made  them  in  advance.  In  the  com- 
mand of  a  man  animated  by  this  spirit  of  renuncia- 
tion, there  is  a  mysterious  force  which  communi- 
cates itself  to  him  who  is  to  obey,  and  helps  him  do 
his  duty. 

In  all  the  provinces  of  human  activity  there  are 
chiefs  who  inspire,  strengthen,  magnetize  their  sol- 
diers: under  their  direction  the  troops  do  prodigies. 
With  them  one  feels  himself  capable  of  any  effort, 
ready  to  go  through  fire,  as  the  saying  has  it ;  and 
if  he  goes,  it  is  with  enthusiasm. 

BUT  the  pride  of  the  exalted  is  not  the  only 
pride  ;  there  is  also  the  pride  of  the  hum- 
ble —  this    arrogance     of    underlings,     fit 
pendant  to   that  of  the  great.     The  root  of  these 
two  prides  is  the  same.      It  is  not  alone  that  lofty 
and  imperious  being,  the  man  who  says,  "  I  am  the 
law,"   that  provokes  insurrection  by  his  very  atti- 
tude ;  it  is  also  that  pig-headed  subaltern  who  will 
not  admit  that  there  is  anything  beyond  his  knowl- 
edge. 

There  are  really  many  people  who  find  all  superi- 
ority irritating.  For  them,  every  piece  of  advice  is 
an  offense,  every  criticism  an  imposition,  every 


PRIDE   AND   SIMPLICITY          16l 

order  an  outrage  on  their  liberty.  They  would  not 
know  how  to  submit  to  rule.  To  respect  anything 
or  anybody  would  seem  to  them  a  mental  aberra- 
tion. They  say  to  people  after  their  fashion : 
"Beyond  us  there  is  nothing." 

To  the  family  of  the  proud  belong  also  those  diffi- 
cult and  supersensitive  people  who  in  humble  life 
find  that  their  superiors  never  do  them  fitting 
honor,  whom  the  best  and  most  kindly  do  not  suc- 
ceed in  satisfying,  and  who  go  about  their  duties 
with  the  air  of  a  martyr.  At  bottom  these  dis- 
affected minds  have  too  much  misplaced  self-respect. 
They  do  not  know  how  to  fill  their  place  simply, 
but  complicate  their  life  and  that  of  others  by 
unreasonable  demands  and  morbid  suspicions. 

When  one  takes  the  trouble  to  study  men  at 
short  range,  he  is  surprised  to  find  that  pride  has  so 
many  lurking-places  among  those  who  are  by  com- 
mon consent  called  the  humble.  So  powerful  is 
this  vice,  that  it  arrives  at  forming  round  those  who 
live  in  the  most  modest  circumstances  a  wall  which 
isolates  them  from  their  neighbors.  There  they  are, 
intrenched,  barricaded  with  their  ambitions  and 
their  contempts,  as  inaccessible  as  the  powerful  of 
earth  behind  their  aristocratic  prejudices.  Obscure 


162  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

or  illustrious,  pride  wraps  itself  in  its  dark  royalty  of 
enmity  to  the  human  race.  It  is  the  same  in 
misery  and  in  high  places  —  solitary  and  impotent, 
on  guard  against  everybody,  embroiling  everything. 
And  the  last  word  about  it  is  always  this :  If 
there  is  so  much  hostility  and  hatred  between  differ- 
ent classes  of  men,  it  is  due  less  to  exterior  condi- 
tions than  to  an  interior  fatality.  Conflicting  inter- 
ests and  differences  of  situation  dig  ditches  between 
us,  it  is  true,  but  pride  transforms  the  ditches  into 
gulfs,  and  in  reality  it  is  pride  alone  which  cries 
from  brink  to  brink :  "  There  is  nothing  in  common 
between  you  and  us." 

WE  have  not  finished  with  pride,  but  it  is 
impossible  to  picture  it  under  all  its 
forms.  I  feel  most  resentful  against  it 
when  it  meddles  with  knowledge  and  appropriates 
that.  We  owe  our  knowledge  to  our  fellows,  as 
we  do  our  riches  and  power.  It  is  a  social  force 
which  ought  to  be  of  service  to  everybody,  and  it 
can  only  be  so  when  those  who  know  remain  sym- 
pathetically near  to  those  who  know  not.  When 
knowledge  is  turned  into  a  tool  for  ambition,  it 
destroys  itself. 


PRIDE   AND   SIMPLICITY          163 

And  what  shall  we  say  of  the  pride  of  good  men  ? 
for  it  exists,  and  makes  even  virtue  hateful.  The 
just  who  repent  them  of  the  evil  others  do,  remain 
in  brotherhood  and  social  rectitude.  But  the  just 
who  despise  others  for  their  faults  and  misdeeds, 
cut  themselves  off  from  humanity,  and  their  good- 
ness, descended  to  the  rank  of  an  ornament  for 
their  vanity,  becomes  like  those  riches  which  kind- 
ness does  not  inform,  like  authority  untempered  by 
the  spirit  of  obedience.  Like  proud  wealth  and 
arrogant  power,  supercilious  virtue  also  is  detestable. 
It  fosters  in  man  traits  and  an  attitude  provocative 
of  I  know  not  what.  The  sight  of  it  repels  instead 
of  attracting,  and  those  whom  it  deigns  to  dis- 
tinguish with  its  benefits  feel  as  though  they  had 
been  slapped  in  the  face. 

To  resume  and  conclude,  it  is  an  error  to  think 
that  our  advantages,  whatever  they  are,  should  be 
put  to  the  service  of  our  vanity.  Each  of  them 
constitutes  for  him  who  enjoys  it  an  obligation  and 
not  a  reason  for  vainglory.  Material  wealth,  power, 
knowledge,  gifts  of  the  heart  and  mind,  become  so 
much  cause  for  discord  when  they  serve  to  nourish 
pride.  They  remain  beneficent  only  so  long  as  they 
are  the  source  of  modesty  in  those  who  possess  them. 


164  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

Let  us  be  humble  if  we  have  great  possessions, 
for  that  proves  that  we  are  great  debtors :  all  that  a 
man  has  he  owes  to  someone,  and  are  we  sure  of 
being  able  to  pay  our  debts  ? 

Let  us  be  humble  if  we  sit  in  high  places  and 
hold  the  fate  of  others  in  our  hands  ;  for  no  clear- 
sighted man  can  fail  to  be  sensible  of  unfitness  for 
so  grave  a  role. 

Let  us  be  humble  if  we  have  much  knowledge, 
for  it  only  serves  to  better  show  the  vastness  of  the 
unknown,  and  to  compare  the  little  we  have  dis- 
covered for  ourselves  with  the  amplitude  of  that 
which  we  owe  to  the  pains  of  others. 

And,  above  all,  let  us  be  humble  if  we  are  virtuous, 
since  no  one  should  be  more  sensible  of  his  defects 
than  he  whose  conscience  is  illumined,  and  since  he 
more  than  anyone  else  should  feel  the  need  of  char- 
ity toward  evil-doers,  even  of  suffering  in  their  stead. 

«      A       ND  what  about  the  necessary  distinctions 
L  %      in    life  ? "     someone    may    ask.      "  As    a 
•^     -^    result  of  your  simplifications,  are  you  not 
going  to  destroy  that  sense  of  the  difference  be- 
tween  men  which  must  be  maintained   if  society 
exists  at  all  ?  " 


PRIDE    AND   SIMPLICITY          165 

I  have  no  mind  to  suppress  distinctions  and  differ- 
ences. But  I  think  that  what  distinguishes  a  man 
is  not  found  in  his  social  rank,  his  occupation,  his 
dress  or  his  fortune,  but  solely  in  himself.  More 
than  any  other  our  own  age  has  pricked  the  vain 
bubble  of  purely  outward  greatness.  To  be  some- 
body at  present,  it  does  not  suffice  to  wear  the  man- 
tle of  an  emperor  or  a  royal  crown :  what  honor  is 
there  in  wielding  power  through  gold  lace,  a  coat  of 
arms  or  a  ribbon?  Not  that  visible  signs  are  to  be 
despised ;  they  have  their  meaning  and  use,  but  on 
condition  that  they  cover  something  and  not  a 
vacuum.  The  moment  they  cease  to  stand  for  real- 
ities, they  become  useless  and  dangerous.  The  only 
true  distinction  is  superior  worth.  If  you  would 
have  social  rank  duly  respected,  you  must  begin  by 
being  worthy  of  the  rank  that  is  your  own  ;  otherwise 
you  help  to  bring  it  into  hatred  and  contempt.  It 
is  unhappily  too  true  that  respect  is  diminishing 
among  us,  and  it  certainly  is  not  from  a  lack  of  lines 
drawn  round  those  who  wish  to  be  respected.  The 
root  of  the  evil  is  in  the  mistaken  idea  that  high 
station  exempts  him  who  holds  it  from  observing 
the  common  obligations  of  life.  As  we  rise,  we  be- 
lieve that  we  free  ourselves  from  the  law,  forgetting 


166  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

that  the  spirit  of  obedience  and  humility  should 
grow  with  our  possessions  and  power.  So  it  comes 
about  that  those  who  demand  the  most  homage 
make  the  least  effort  to  merit  the  homage  they  de- 
mand. This  is  why  respect  is  diminishing. 

The  sole  distinction  necessary  is  the  wish  to  be- 
come better.  The  man  who  strives  to  be  better 
becomes  more  humble,  more  approachable,  more 
friendly  even  with  those  who  owe  him  allegiance. 
But  as  he  gains  by  being  better  known,  he  loses 
nothing  in  distinction,  and  he  reaps  the  more  respect 
in  that  he  has  sown  the  less  pride. 


XIII 


1 


simple  life  being  above  all  else  the 
product  of  a  direction    of  mind,   it    is 
natural     that    education    should    have 
much  to  do  with  it. 
In  general  but  two  methods  of  rearing  children 
are    practiced  :    the    first    is    to  bring    them  up  for 
ourselves ;  the  second,  to  bring  them  up  for  them- 
selves. 

In  the  first  case  the  child  is  looked  upon  as  a 
complement  of  the  parents :  he  is  part  of  their 
property,  occupies  a  place  among  their  possessions. 
Sometimes  this  place  is  the  highest,  especially 
when  the  parents  value  the  life  of  the  affections. 
Again,  where  material  interests  rule,  the  child  holds 
second,  third,  or  even  the  last  place.  In  any  case 
he  is  a  nobody.  W-hile  he  is  young,  he  gravitates 
round  his  parents,  not  only  by  obedience,  which  is 
right,  but  by  the  subordination  of  all  his  originality, 

all  his  being.     As  he  grows  older,  this  subordination 
167 


168  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

becomes  a  veritable  confiscation,  extending  to  his 
ideas,  his  feelings,  everything.  His  minority  be- 
comes perpetual.  Instead  of  slowly  evolving  into 
independence,  the  man  advances  into  slavery.  He 
is  what  he  is  permitted  to  be,  what  his  father's  busi- 
ness, religious  beliefs,  political  opinions  or  esthetic 
tastes  require  him  to  be.  He  will  think,  speak, 
act,  and  marry  according  to  the  understanding  and 
limits  of  the  paternal  absolutism.  This  family  tyr- 
anny may  be  exercised  by  people  with  no  strength 
of  character.  It  is  only  necessary  for  them  to  be 
convinced  that  good  order  requires  the  child  to  be 
the  property  of  the  parents.  In  default  of  mental 
force,  they  possess  themselves  of  him  by  other 
means  —  by  sighs,  supplications,  or  base  seduc- 
tions. If  they  cannot  fetter  him,  they  snare  his 
feet  in  traps.  But  that  he  should  live  in  them, 
through  them,  for  them,  is  the  only  thing  admis- 
sible. 

Education  of  this  sort  is  not  the  practice  of  fam- 
ilies only,  but  also  of  great  social  organizations 
whose  chief  educational  function  consists  in  putting 
a  strong  hand  on  every  new-comer,  in  order  to  fit 
him,  in  the  most  iron-bound  fashion,  into  existing 
forms.  It  is  the  attenuation,  pulverization  and  as- 


EDUCATION   FOR   SIMPLICITY     169 

similation  of  the  individual  in  a  social  body,  be  it 
theocratic,  communistic,  or  simply  bureaucratic  and 
routinary.  Looked  at  from  without,  a  like  system 
seems  the  ideal  of  simplicity  in  education.  Its 
processes,  in  fact,  are  absolutely  simplistic,  and  if  a 
man  were  not  somebody,  if  he  were  only  a  sample 
of  the  race,  this  would  be  the  perfect  education. 
As  all  wild  beasts,  all  fish  and  insects  of  the  same 
genus  and  species  have  the  same  markings,  so  we 
should  all  be  identical,  having  the  same  tastes,  the 
same  language,  the  same  beliefs,  the  same  tenden- 
cies. But  man  is  not  simply  a  specimen  of  the 
race,  and  for  that  reason  this  sort  of  education  is  far 
from  being  simple  in  its  results.  Men  so  vary  from 
one  another,  that  numberless  methods  have  to  be 
invented  to  repress,  stupefy,  and  extinguish  individ- 
ual thought.  And  one  never  arrives  at  it  then  but 
in  part,  a  fact  which  is  continually  deranging  every- 
thing. At  each  moment,  by  some  fissure,  some  in- 
terior force  of  initiative  is  making  a  violent  way  to 
the  light,  producing  explosions,  upheavals,  all  sorts 
of  grave  disorders.  And  where  there  are  no  out- 
ward manifestations,  the  evil  lies  dormant ;  beneath 
apparent  order  are  hidden  dumb  revolt,  flaws  made 
by  an  abnormal  existence,  apathy,  death. 


170  THE    SIMPLE    LIFE 

The  system  is  evil  which  produces  such  fruit,  and 
however  simple  it  may  appear,  in  reality  it  brings 
forth  all  possible  complications. 

THE  other  system  is  the  extreme  opposite, 
that  of  bringing  up  children  for  themselves. 
The  roles  are  reversed :  the  parents  are 
there  for  the  child.  No  sooner  is  he  born  than  he 
becomes  the  center.  White-headed  grandfather  and 
stalwart  father  bow  before  these  curls.  His  lisping 
is  their  law.  A  sign  from  him  suffices.  If  he  cries 
in  the  night,  no  fatigue  is  of  account,  the  whole 
household  must  be  roused.  The  new-comer  is  not 
long  in  discovering  his  omnipotence,  and  before  he 
can  walk  he  is  drunken  with  it.  As  he  grows  older 
all  this  deepens  and  broadens.  Parents,  grandpar- 
ents, servants,  teachers,  everybody  is  at  his  com- 
mand. He  accepts  the  homage  and  even  the  im- 
molation of  his  neighbor :  he  treats  like  a  rebellious 
subject  anyone  who  does  not  step  out  of  his  path. 
There  is  only  himself.  He  is  the  unique,  the  per- 
fect, the  infallible.  Too  late  it  is  perceived  that  all 
this  has  been  evolving  a  master;  and  what  a  master! 
forgetful  of  sacrifices,  without  respect,  even  pity. 
He  no  longer  has  any  regard  for  those  to  whom  he 


EDUCATION   FOR   SIMPLICITY     171 

owes  everything,  and  he  goes  through  life  without 
law  or  check. 

This  education,  too,  has  its  social  counterpart.  It 
flourishes  wherever  the  past  does  not  count,  where 
history  begins  with  the  living,  where  there  is  no 
tradition,  no  discipline,  no  reverence ;  where  those 
who  know  the  least  make  the  most  noise  ;  where 
those  who  stand  for  public  order  are  alarmed  by 
every  chance  comer  whose  power  lies  in  his  making 
a  great  outcry  and  respecting  nothing.  It  insures 
the  reign  of  transitory  passion,  the  triumph  of  the 
inferior  will.  I  compare  these  two  educations- — one, 
the  exaltation  of  the  environment,  the  other  of  the 
individual ;  one  the  absolutism  of  tradition,  the  other 
the  tyranny  of  the  new  —  and  I  find  them  equally 
baneful.  But  the  most  disastrous  of  all  is  the 
combination  of  the  two,  which  produces  human  be- 
ings half-automatons,  half-despots,  forever  vacillat- 
ing between  the  spirit  of  a  sheep  and  the  spirit  of 
revolt  or  domination. 

Children  should  be  educated  neither  for  them- 
selves nor  for  their  parents :  ^  for  man  is  no  more 
designed  to  be  a  personage  than  a  specimen.  They 
should  be  educated  for  life.  The  aim  of  their  edu- 
cation is  to  aid  them  to  become  active  members  of 


172  THE    SIMPLE    LIFE 

humanity,  brotherly  forces,  free  servants  of  the  civil 
organization.  To  follow  a  method  of  education  in- 
spired by  any  other  principle,  is  to  complicate  life, 
deform  it,  sow  the  seeds  of  all  disorders. 

When  we  would  sum  up  in  a  phrase  the  destiny 
of  the  child,  the  word  future  springs  to  our  lips. 
The  child  is  the  future.  This  word  says  all  —  the 
sufferings  of  the  past,  the  stress  of  to-day,  hope. 
But  when  the  education  of  the  child  begins,  he  is 
incapable  of  estimating  the  reach  of  this  word;  for 
he  is  held  by  impressions  of  the  present.  Who 
then  shall  give  him  the  first  enlightenment  and 
put  him  in  the  way  he  should  go  ?  The  parents, 
the  teachers.  And  with  very  little  reflection  they 
perceive  that  their  work  does  not  interest  simply 
themselves  and  the  child,  but  that  they  represent 
and  administer  impersonal  powers  and  interests. 
The  child  should  continually  appear  to  them  as  a 
future  citizen.  With  this  ruling  idea,  they  will 
take  thought  for  two  things  that  complement 
each  other  —  for  the  initial  and  personal  force 
which  is  germinating  in  the  child,  and  for  the  social 
destination  of  this  force.  At  no  moment  of  their 
direction  over  him  can  they  forget  that  this  little 
being  confided  to  their  care  must  become  himself 


EDUCATION    FOR    SIMPLICITY     173 

and  a  brother.  These  two  conditions,  far  from  ex- 
cluding each  other,  never  exist  apart.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  be  brotherly,  to  love,  to  give  one's  self,  un- 
less one  is  master  of  himself ;  and  reciprocally,  none 
can  possess  himself,  comprehend  his  own  individual 
being,  until  he  has  first  made  his  way  through  the 
outward  accidents  of  his  existence,  down  to  the  pro- 
found springs  of  life  where  man  feels  himself  one 
with  other  men  in  all  that  is  most  intimately  his  own. 
To  aid  a  child  to  become  himself  and  a  brother  it 
is  necessary  to  protect  him  against  the  violent  and 
destructive  action  of  the  forces  of  disorder.  These 
forces  are  exterior  and  interior.  Every  child  is 
menaced  from  without  not  only  by  material  dangers 
but  by  the  meddlesomeness  of  alien  wills ;  and  from 
within,  by  an  exaggerated  idea  of  his  own  personal- 
ity and  all  the  fancies  it  breeds.  There  is  a  great 
outward  danger  which  may  come  from  the  abuse  of 
power  in  educators.  The  right  of  might  finds  itself 
a  place  in  education  with  extreme  facility.  To 
educate  another,  one  must  have  renounced  this 
right,  that  is  to  say,  made  abnegation  of  the  inferior 
sentiment  of  personal  importance,  which  transforms 
us  into  the  enemies  of  others,  even  of  our  own  chil- 
dren. Our  authority  is  beneficent  only  when  it  is 


174  THE    SIMPLE    LIFE 

inspired  by  one  higher  than  our  own.  In  this 
case  it  is  not  only  salutary,  but  also  indispensa- 
ble, and  becomes  in  its  turn  the  best  guarantee 
against  the  greater  peril  which  threatens  the  child 
from  within  —  that  of  exaggerating  his  own  import- 
ance. At  the  beginning  of  life  the  vividness  of 
personal  impressions  is  so  great,  that  to  establish  an 
equilibrium,  they  must  be  submitted  to  the  gentle 
influence  of  a  calm  and  superior  will.  The  true 
quality  of  the  office  of  educator  is  to  represent  this 
will  to  the  child,  in  a  manner  as  continuous  and  as 
disinterested  as  possible.  Educators,  then,  stand 
for  all  that  is  to  be  respected  in  the  world.  They 
give  to  the  child  impressions  of  that  which  pre- 
cedes it,  outruns  it,  envelops  it:  but  they  do  not 
crush  it ;  on  the  contrary,  their  will  and  all  the 
influence  they  transmit,  become  elements  nutritive 
of  its  native  energy.  Such  use  of  authority  as  this, 
cultivates  that  fruitful  obedience  out  of  which  free 
souls  are  born.  The  purely  personal  authority  of 
parents,  masters  and  institutions  is  to  the  child 
like  the  brushwood  beneath  which  the  young  plant 
withers  and  dies.  Impersonal  authority,  the  author- 
ity of  a  man  who  has  first  submitted  himself  to  the 
time-honored  realities  before  which  he  wishes  the 


EDUCATION    FOR    SIMPLICITY     175 

individual  fancy  of  the  child  to  bend,  resembles 
pure  and  luminous  air.  True  it  has  an  activity,  and 
influences  us  in  its  manner,  but  it  nourishes  our 
individuality  and  gives  it  firmness  and  stability. 
Without  this  authority  there  is  no  education.  To 
watch,  to  guide,  to  keep  a  firm  hand  —  such  is  the 
function  of  the  educator.  He  should  appear  to  the 
child  not  like  a  barrier  of  whims,  which,  if  need  be, 
one  may  clear,  provided  the  leap  be  proportioned  to 
the  height  of  the  obstacle ;  but  like  a  transparent 
wall  through  which  may  be  seen  unchanging  reali- 
ties, laws,  limits,  and  truths  against  which  no  action 
is  possible.  Thus  arises  respect,  which  is  the 
faculty  of  conceiving  something  greater  than  our- 
selves —  respect,  which  broadens  us  and  frees  us  by 
making  us  more  modest.  This  is  the  law  of  educa- 
tion for  simplicity.  It  may  be  summed  up  in  these 
words  :  to  make  free  and  reverential  men,  who  shall 
be  individual  and  fraternal. 

LET  us  draw  from  this  principle  some  practi- 
cal applications. 
From  the  very  fact  that  the  child  is  the 
future,  he  must  be  linked  to  the   past  by  piety. 
We  owe  it  to  him  to  clothe  tradition  in  the  forms 


176  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

most  practical  and  most  fit  to  create  a  deep  impres- 
sion :  whence  the  exceptional  place  that  should 
be  given  in  education  to  the  ancients,  to  the  cult 
of  remembrance  of  the  past,  and  by  extension,  to 
the  history  of  the  domestic  rooftree.  Above  all  do 
we  fulfil  a  duty  toward  our  children  when  we  give 
the  place  of  honor  to  the  grandparents.  Nothing 
speaks  to  a  child  with  so  much  force,  or  so  well  de- 
velops his  modesty,  as  to  see  his  father  and  mother, 
on  all  occasions,  preserve  toward  an  old  grandfather, 
often  infirm,  an  attitude  of  respect.  It  is  a  perpet- 
ual object  lesson  that  is  irresistible.  That  it  may 
have  its  full  force,  it  is  necessary  for  a  tacit  under- 
standing to  obtain  among  all  the  grown-up  members 
of  the  family.  To  the  child's  eyes  they  must  all  be 
in  league,  held  to  mutual  respect  and  understand- 
ing, under  penalty  of  compromising  their  educa- 
tional authority.  And  in  their  number  must  be 
counted  the  servants.  Servants  are  big  people,  and 
the  same  sentiment  of  respect  is  injured  in  the 
child's  disregard  of  them  as  in  his  disregard  of  his 
father  or  grandfather.  The  moment  he  addresses 
an  impolite  or  arrogant  word  to  a  person  older  than 
himself,  he  strays  from  the  path  that  a  child  ought 
never  to  quit ;  and  if  only  occasionally  the  parents 


EDUCATION   FOR   SIMPLICITY     177 

neglect  to  point  this  out,  they  will  soon  perceive  by 
his  conduct  toward  themselves,  that  the  enemy  has 
found  entrance  to  his  heart. 

We  mistake  if  we  think  that  a  child  is  naturally 
alien  to  respect,  basing  this  opinion  on  the  very 
numerous  examples  of  irreverence  which  he  offers 
us.  Respect  is  for  the  child  a  fundamental  need. 
His  moral  being  feeds  on  it.  The  child  aspires 
confusedly  to  revere  and  admire  something.  But 
when  advantage  is  not  taken  of  this  aspiration,  it 
gets  corrupted  or  lost.  By  our  lack  of  cohesion 
and  mutual  deference,  we,  the  grown-ups,  dis- 
credit daily  in  the  child's  eyes  our  own  cause  and 
that  of  everything  worthy  of  respect.  We  in- 
oculate in  him  a  bad  spirit  whose  effects  then  turn 
against  us. 

This  pitiful  truth  nowhere  appears  with  more 
force  than  in  the  relations  between  masters  and  ser- 
vants, as  we  have  made  them.  Our  social  errors, 
our  want  of  simplicity  and  kindness,  all  fall  back 
u^on  the  heads  of  our  children.  There  are  cer- 
tainly few  people  of  the  middle  classes  who  under- 
stand that  it  is  better  to  part  with  many  thousands 
of  dollars  than  to  lead  their  children  to  lose  respect 
for  servants,  who  represent  in  our  households  the 


178  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

humble.  Yet  nothing  is  truer.  Maintain  as  strict- 
ly as  you  will  conventions  and  distances,  —  that  de- 
markation  of  social  frontiers  which  permits  each  one 
to  remain  in  his  place  and  to  observe  the  law  of  dif- 
ferences. That  is  a  good  thing,  I  am  persuaded, 
but  on  condition  of  never  forgetting  that  those  who 
serve  us  are  men  and  women  like  ourselves.  You 
require  of  your  domestics  certain  formulas  of  speech 
and  certain  attitudes,  outward  evidence  of  the  re- 
spect they  owe  you.  Do  you  also  teach  your 
children  and  use  yourselves  manners  toward  your 
servants  which  show  them  that  you  respect  their 
dignity  as  individuals,  as  you  desire  them  to  respect 
yours  ?  Here  we  have  continually  in  our  homes  an 
excellent  ground  for  experiment  in  the  practice  of 
that  mutual  respect  which  is  one  of  the  essential 
conditions  of  social  sanity.  I  fear  we  profit  by  it 
too  little.  We  do  not  fail  to  exact  respect,  but  we 
fail  to  give  it.  So  it  is  most  frequently  the  case 
that  we  get  only  hypocrisy  and  this  supplementary 
result,  all  unexpected,  —  the  cultivation  of  pride  in 
our  children.  These  two  factors  combined  heap  up 
great  difficulties  for  that  future  which  we  ought  to 
be  safeguarding.  I  am  right  then  in  saying  that 
the  day  when  by  your  own  practices  you  have 


EDUCATION   FOR   SIMPLICITY     179 

brought  about  the  lessening  of  respect  in  your  chil- 
dren, you  have  suffered  a  sensible  loss. 

Why  should  I  not  say  it  ?  It  seems  to  me  that 
the  greater  part  of  us  labor  for  this  loss.  On  all 
sides,  in  almost  every  social  rank,  I  notice  that  a 
pretty  bad  spirit  is  fostered  in  children,  a  spirit  of 
reciprocal  contempt.  Here,  those  who  have  cal- 
loused hands  and  working-clothes  are  disdained  ; 
there,  it  is  all  who  do  not  wear  blue  jeans.  Chil- 
dren educated  in  this  spirit  make  sad  fellow-citi- 
zens. There  is  in  all  this  the  want  of  that  sim- 
plicity which  makes  it  possible  for  men  of  good 
intentions,  of  however  diverse  social  standing,  to  col- 
laborate without  any  friction  arising  from  the  con- 
ventional distance  that  separates  them. 

If  the  spirit  of  caste  causes  the  loss  of  respect,  par- 
tisanship, of  whatever  sort,  is  quite  as  productive  of 
it.  In  certain  quarters  children  are  brought  up  in 
such  fashion  that  they  respect  but  one  country  — 
their  own ;  one  system  of  government  —  that  of 
their  parents  and  masters ;  one  religion  —  that 
which  they  have  been  taught.  Does  anyone  sup- 
pose that  in  this  way  men  can  be  shaped  who  shall 
respect  country,  religion  and  law  ?  Is  this  a  prop- 
er respect  —  this  respect  which  does  not  extend 


180  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

beyond  what  touches  and  belongs  to  ourselves  ? 
Strange  blindness  of  cliques  and  coteries,  which  ar- 
rogate to  themselves  with  so  much  ingenuous  com- 
placence the  title  of  schools  of  respect,  and  which, 
outside  themselves,  respect  nothing.  In  reality  they 
teach  :  "  Country,  religion,  law  —  we  are  all  these  !  " 
Such  teaching  fosters  fanaticism,  and  if  fanaticism 
is  not  the  sole  anti-social  ferment,  it  is  surely  one 
of  the  worst  and  most  energetic, 

IF  simplicity  of  heart  is  an  essential  condition  of 
respect,  simplicity  of  life  is  its  best  school. 
Whatever  be  the  state  of  your  fortune,  avoid 
everything  which  could  make  your  children  think 
themselves  more  or  better  than  others.  Though 
your  wealth  would  permit  you  to  dress  them 
richly,  remember  the  evil  you  might  do  in  ex- 
citing their  vanity.  Preserve  them  from  the  evil 
of  believing  that  to  be  elegantly  dressed  suffices 
for  distinction,  and  above  all  do  not  carelessly  in- 
crease by  their  clothes  and  their  habits  of  life,  the 
distance  which  already  separates  them  from  other 
children:  dress  them  simply.  And  if,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  would  be  necessary  for  you  to  economize  to 
give  your  children  the  pleasure  of  fine  clothes,  J 


EDUCATION   FOR   SIMPLICITY     181 

would  that  I  might  dispose  you  to  reserve  your  spirit 
of  sacrifice  for  a  better  cause.  You  risk  seeing  it 
illy  recompensed.  You  dissipate  your  money  when 
it  would  much  better  avail  to  save  it  for  serious 
needs,  and  you  prepare  for  yourself,  later  on,  a  har- 
vest of  ingratitude.  How  dangerous  it  is  to  ac- 
custom your  sons  and  daughters  to  a  style  of  living 
beyond  your  means  and  theirs  !  In  the  first  place,  it 
is  very  bad  for  your  purse ;  in  the  second  place  it 
develops  a  contemptuous  spirit  in  the  very  bosom  of 
the  family.  If  you  dress  your  children  like  little  lords, 
and  give  them  to  understand  that  they  are  superior 
to  you,  is  it  astonishing  if  they  end  by  disdaining  you  ? 
You  will  have  nourished  at  your  table  the  declassed 
—  a  product  which  costs  dear  and  is  worthless. 

Any  fashion  of  instructing  children  whose  most 
evident  result  is  to  lead  them  to  despise  their  par- 
ents and  the  customs  and  activities  among  which 
they  have  grown  up,  is  a  calamity.  It  is  effective 
for  nothing  but  to  produce  a  legion  of  malcontents, 
with  hearts  totally  estranged  from  their  origin,  their 
race,  their  natural  interests  —  everything,  in  short, 
that  makes  the  fundamental  fabric  of  a  man. 
Once  detached  from  the  vigorous  stock  which  pro- 
duced them,  the  wind  of  their  restless  ambition  drives 


182  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

them  over  the  earth,  like  dead  leaves  that  will  in 
the  end  be  heaped  up  to  ferment  and  rot  together. 
Nature  does  not  proceed  by  leaps  and  bounds,  but 
by  an  evolution  slow  and  certain.  In  preparing  a 
career  for  our  children,  let  us  imitate  her.  Let  us 
not  confound  progress  and  advancement  with  those 
violent  exercises  called  somersaults.  Let  us  not  so 
bring  up  our  children  that  they  will  come  to  despise 
work  and  the  aspirations  and  simple  spirit  of  their 
fathers :  let  us  not  expose  them  to  the  temptation 
of  being  ashamed  of  our  poverty  if  they  themselves 
come  to  fortune.  A  society  is  indeed  diseased  when 
the  sons  of  peasants  begin  to  feel  disgust  for  the 
fields,  when  the  sons  of  sailors  desert  the  sea,  when 
the  daughters  of  workingmen,  in  the  hope  of  being 
taken  for  heiresses,  prefer  to  walk  the  streets  alone 
rather  than  beside  their  honest  parents.  A  society 
is  healthy,  on  the  contrary,  when  each  of  its  mem- 
bers applies  himself  to  doing  very  nearly  what  his 
parents  have  done  before  him,  but  doing  it  better, 
and,  looking  to  future  elevation,  is  content  first  to 
fulfill  conscientiously  more  modest  duties.* 

*  This  would  be  the  place  to  speak  of  work  in  general,  and 
of  its  tonic  effect  upon  education.  But  I  have  discussed  the 
subject  in  my  books  Justice,  Jeunesse,  and  Vaillance.  I 
must  limit  myself  to  referring  the  reader  to  them. 


EDUCATION   FOR   SIMPLICITY     183 

EDUCATION  should  make  independent  men. 
If  you  wish  to  train  your  children  for  liberty, 
bring  them  up  simply,  and  do  not  for  a  mo- 
ment fear  that  in  so  doing  you  are  putting  obstacles 
in  the  way  of  their  happiness.      It  will  be  quite  the 
contrary.     The   more    costly    toys   a   child    has,  the 
more  feasts  and  curious  entertainments,  the  less  is 
he  amused. 

In  this  there  is  a  sure  sign.  Let  us  be  temperate 
in  our  methods  of  entertaining  youth,  and  especially 
let  us  not  thoughtlessly  create  for  them  artificial 
needs.  Food,  dress,  nursery,  amusements  —  let  all 
these  be  as  natural  and  simple  as  possible.  With 
the  idea  of  making  life  pleasant  for  their  children, 
some  parents  bring  them  up  in  habits  of  gormandiz- 
ing and  idleness,  accustom  them  to  sensations  not 
meant  for  their  age,  multiply  their  parties  and 
entertainments.  Sorry  gifts  these  !  In  place  of  a 
free  man,  you  are  making  a  slave.  Gorged  with 
luxury,  he  tires  of  it  in  time;  and  yet  when  for  one 
reason  or  another  his  pleasures  fail  him,  he  will  be 
miserable,  and  you  with  him  :  and  what  is  worse, 
perhaps  in  some  capital  encounter  of  life,  you  will 
be  ready  —  you  and  he  together  —  to  sacrifice  manly 
dignity,  truth,  and  duty,  from  sheer  sloth. 


184  THE    SIMPLE    LIFE 

Let  us  bring  up  our  children  simply,  I  had  almost 
said  rudely.  Let  us  entice  them  to  exercise  that 
gives  them  endurance  —  even  to  privations.  Let 
them  belong  to  those  who  are  better  trained  to 
fatigue  and  the  earth  for  a  bed  than  to  the  comforts 
of  the  table  and  couches  of  luxury.  So  we  shall 
make  men  of  them,  independent  and  staunch,  who 
may  be  counted  on,  who  will  not  sell  themselves  fof 
pottage,  and  who  will  have  withal  the  faculty  of 
being  happy. 

A  too  easy  life  brings  with  it  a  sort  of  lassitude  in 
vital  energy.  One  becomes  blase,  disillusioned,  an 
old  young  man,  past  being  diverted.  How  many 
young  people  are  in  this  state !  Upon  them  have 
been  deposited,  like  a  sort  of  mold,  the  traces  of 
our  decrepitude,  our  skepticism,  our  vices,  and  the 
bad  habits  they  have  contracted  in  our  company. 
What  reflections  upon  ourselves  these  youths  weary 
of  life  force  us  to  make  !  What  announcements  are 
graven  on  their  brows  ! 

These  shadows  say  to  us  by  contrast  that  happi- 
ness lies  in  a  life  true,  active,  spontaneous,  ungalled 
by  the  yoke  of  the  passions,  of  unnatural  needs,  of 
unhealthy  stimulus ;  keeping  intact  the  physical 
faculty  of  enjoying  the  light  of  day  and  the  air  we 


EDUCATION    FOR    SIMPLICITY     185 

breathe,  and  in  the  heart,  the  capacity  to  thrill  with 
the  love  of  all  that  is  generous,  simple  and  fine. 

(HE  artificial  life  engenders  artificial 
thought,  and  a  speech  little  sure  of 
itself.  Normal  habits,  deep  impressions, 
the  ordinary  contact  with  reality,  bring  frankness 
with  them.  Falsehood  is  the  vice  of  a  slave,  the 
refuge  of  the  cowardly  and  weak.  He  who  is  free 
and  strong  is  unflinching  in  speech.  We  should 
encourage  in  our  children  the  hardihood  to  speak 
frankly.  What  do  we  ordinarily  do  ?  We  trample 
on  natural  disposition,  level  it  down  to  the  unifor- 
mity which  for  the  crowd  is  synonymous  with  good 
form.  To  think  with  one's  own  mind,  feel  with 
one's  own  heart,  express  one's  own  personality  — 
how  unconventional,  how  rustic  !  —  Oh  !  the  atrocity 
of  an  education  which  consists  in  the  perpetual  muz- 
zling of  the  only  thing  that  gives  any  of  us  his 
reason  for  being  .'  Of  how  many  soul-murders  do 
we  become  guilty !  Some  are  struck  down  with 
bludgeons,  others  gently  smothered  with  pillows  ! 
Everything  conspires  against  independence  of  char- 
acter. When  we  are  little,  people  wish  us  to  be  dolls 
or  graven  images ;  when  we  grow  up,  they  approve  of  us 


IS6  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

on  condition  that  we  are  like  all  the  rest  of  the 
world  —  automatons  :  when  you  have  seen  one  of 
them  you've  seen  them  all.  So  the  lack  of  origi- 
nality and  initiative  is  upon  us,  and  platitude  and 
monotony  are  the  distinctions  of  to-day.  Truth 
can  free  us  from  this  bondage  :  let  our  children  be 
taught  to  be  themselves,  to  ring  clear,  without  crack 
or  muffle.  Make  loyalty  a  need  to  them,  and  in 
their  gravest  failures,  if  only  they  acknowledge 
them,  account  it  for  merit  that  they  have  not  cov- 
ered their  sin. 

To  frankness  let  us  add  ingenuousness,  in  our 
solicitude  as  educators.  Let  us  have  for  this  com- 
rade of  childhood  —  a  trifle  uncivilized,  it  is  true, 
but  so  gracious  and  friendly  !  —  all  possible  regard. 
We  must  not  frighten  it  away :  when  it  has  once 
fled,  it  so  rarely  comes  back  !  Ingenuousness  is  not 
simply  the  sister  of  truth,  the  guardian  of  the  indi- 
vidual qualities  of  each  of  us ;  it  is  besides  a  great 
informing  and  educating  force.  I  see  among  us  too 
many  practical  people,  so  called,  who  go  about 
armed  with  terrifying  spectacles  and  huge  shears  to 
ferret  out  nai've  things  and  clip  their  wings.  They 
uproot  ingenuousness  from  life,  from  thought,  from 
education,  and  pursue  it  even  to  the  region  of 


EDUCATION   FOR   SIMPLICITY     187 

dreams.  Under  pretext  of  making  men  of  their 
children,  they  prevent  their  being  children  at  all ; 
—  as  if  before  the  ripe  fruit  of  autumn,  flowers  did 
not  have  to  be,  and  perfumes,  and  songs  of  birds, 
and  all  the  fairy  springtime. 

I  ask  indulgence  for  everything  nai've  and  simple, 
not  alone  for  the  innocent  conceits  that  flutter  round 
the  curly  heads  of  children,  but  also  for  the  legend, 
the  folk  song,  the  tales  of  the  world  of  marvel  and 
mystery.  The  sense  of  the  marvellous  is  in  the 
child  the  first  form  of  that  sense  of  the  infinite  with- 
out which  a  man  is  like  a  bird  deprived  of  wings. 
Let  us  not  wean  the  child  from  it,  but  let  us  guard 
in  him  the  faculty  of  rising  above  what  is  earthy, 
so  that  he  may  appreciate  later  on  those  pure  and 
moving  symbols  of  vanished  ages  wherein  human 
truth  has  found  forms  of  expression  that  our  arid 
logic  will  never  replace. 


XIV 
CONCLUSION 

I  THINK  I  have  said  enough  of  the  spirit  and 
manifestations  of  the  simple  life,  to  make    it 
evident  that  there  is  here  a  whole  forgotten 
world  of  strength  and  beauty.      He  can  make 
conquest  of  it  who  has  sufficient  energy  to  detach 
himself  from  the  fatal   rubbish   that  trammels  our 
days.      It  will  not  take  him  long  to  perceive  that  in 
renouncing  some  surface    satisfactions  and    childish 
ambitions,  he  increases  his  faculty  of  happiness  and 
his  possibilities  of  right  judgment. 

These  results  concern  as  much  the  private  as  the 
public  life.  It  is  incontestable  that  in  striving 
against  the  feverish  will  to  shine,  in  ceasing  to  make 
the  satisfaction  of  our  desires  the  end  of  our  activity, 
in  returning  to  modest  tastes,  to  the  true  life,  we 
shall  labor  for  the  unity  of  the  family.  Another 
spirit  will  breath  in  our  homes,  creating  new  cus- 
toms and  an  atmosphere  more  favorable  to  the  edu- 
cation of  children.  Little  by  little  our  boys  and 
188 


CONCLUSION  189 

girls  will  feel  the  enticement  of  ideals  at  once  higher 
and  more  realizable.  And  transformation  of  the 
home  will  in  time  exercise  its  influence  on  public 
spirit.  As  the  solidity  of  a  wall  depends  upon  the 
^rain  of  the  stones  and  the  consistence  of  the  ce- 
ment which  binds  them  together,  so  also  the  energy 
of  public  life  depends  upon  the  individual  value  of 
men  and  their  power  of  cohesion.  The  great  desid- 
eratum of  our  time  is  the  culture  of  the  component 
parts  of  society,  of  the  individual  man.  Everything 
in  the  present  social  organism  leads  us  back  to  this 
element.  In  neglecting  it  we  expose  ourselves  to 
the  loss  of  the  benefits  of  progress,  even  to  making 
our  most  persistent  efforts  turn  to  our  own  hurt.  If 
in  the  midst  of  means  continually  more  and  more 
perfected,  the  workman  diminishes  in  value,  of 
what  use  are  these  fine  tools  at  his  disposal  ?  By 
their  very  excellence  to  make  more  evident  the 
faults  of  him  who  uses  them  without  discernment  or 
without  conscience.  The  wheelwork  of  the  great 
modern  machine  is  infinitely  delicate.  Carelessness, 
incompetence  or  corruption  may  produce  here  dis- 
turbances ol  far  greater  gravity  than  would  have 
threatened  the  more  or  less  rudimentary  organism  of 
the  society  of  the  past.  There  is  need  then  of  look- 


190  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

ing  to  the  quality  of  the  individual  called  upon  to 
contribute  in  any  measure  to  the  workings  of  this 
mechanism.  This  individual  should  be  at  once  solid 
and  pliable,  inspired  with  the  central  law  of  life  — 
to  be  one's  self  and  fraternal.  Everything  within 
us  and  without  us  becomes  simplified  and  unified 
under  the  influence  of  this  law,  which  is  the  same 
for  everybody  and  by  which  each  one  should  guide 
his  actions ;  for  our  essential  interests  are  not  op- 
posing, they  are  identical.  In  cultivating  the  spirit 
of  simplicity,  we  should  arrive,  then,  at  giving  to 
public  life  a  stronger  cohesion. 

The  phenomena  of  decomposition  and  destruction 
that  we  see  there  may  all  be  attributed  to  the  same 
cause,  —  lack  of  solidity  and  cohesion.  It  will 
never  be  possible  to  say  how  contrary  to  social  good 
are  the  trifling  interests  of  caste,  of  coterie,  of 
church,  the  bitter  strife  for  personal  welfare,  and,  by 
a  fatal  consequence,  how  destructive  these  things 
are  of  individual  happiness.  A  society  in  which 
each  member  is  preoccupied  with  his  own  well-be- 
ing, is  organized  disorder.  This  is  all  that  we  learn 
from  the  irreconcilable  conflicts  of  our  uncompromis- 
ing egoism. 

We  too  much  resemble  those  people  who  claim 


CONCLUSION  191 

the  rights  of  family  only  to  gain  advantage  from 
them,  not  to  do  honor  to  the  connection.  On  all 
rounds  of  the  social  ladder  we  are  forever  putting 
forth  claims.  We  all  take  the  ground  that  we  are 
creditors :  no  one  recognizes  the  fact  that  he  is  a 
debtor,  and  our  dealings  with  our  fellows  consist  in 
inviting  them,  in  tones  sometimes  amiable,  some- 
times arrogant,  to  discharge  their  indebtedness  to 
us.  No  good  thing  is  attained  in  this  spirit.  For 
in  fact  it  is  the  spirit  of  privilege,  that  eternal  ene- 
my of  universal  law,  that  obstacle  to  brotherly  un- 
derstanding which  is  ever  presenting  itself  anew. 

IN  a  lecture  delivered  in  1882,  M.  Renan  said 
that  a  nation  is  "a  spiritual  family,"  and  he 
added  :  "  The  essential  of  a  nation  is  that  all 
the  individuals  should  have  many  things  in  com- 
mon, and  also  that  all  should  have  forgotten  much." 
It  is  important  to  know  what  to  forget  and  what  to 
remember,  not  only  in  the  past,  but  also  in  our  daily 
life.  Our  memories  are  lumbered  with  the  things 
that  divide  us  ;  the  things  which  unite  us  slip  away. 
Each  of  us  keeps  at  the  most  luminous  point  of  his 
souvenirs,  a  lively  sense  of  his  secondary  quality,  his 
part  of  agriculturist,  day  laborer,  man  of  letters, 


192  THE   SIMPLE   LIFE 

public  officer,  proletary,  bourgeois,  or  political  or 
religious  sectarian  ;  but  his  essential  quality,  which 
is  to  be  a  son  of  his  country  and  a  man,  is  relegated 
to  the  shade.  Scarcely  does  he  keep  even  a  theo- 
retic notion  of  it.  So  that  what  occupies  us  and 
determines  our  actions,  is  precisely  the  thing  that 
separates  us  from  others,  and  there  is  hardly  place 
for  that  spirit  of  unity  which  is  as  the  soul  of  a 
people. 

So  too  do  we  foster  bad  feeling  in  our  brothers. 
Men  animated  by  a  spirit  of  particularism,  exclusive- 
ness,  and  pride,  are  continually  clashing.  They 
cannot  meet  without  rousing  afresh  the  sentiment 
of  division  and  rivalry.  And  so  there  slowly  heaps 
up  in  their  remembrance  a  stock  of  reciprocal  ill- 
will,  of  mistrust,  of  rancor.  All  this  is  bad  feeling 
with  its  consequences. 

It  must  be  rooted  out  of  our  midst.  Remember, 
forget !  This  we  should  say  to  ourselves  every 
morning,  in  all  our  relations  and  affairs.  Remember 
the  essential,  forget  the  accessory  !  How  much 
better  should  we  discharge  our  duties  as  citizens, 
if  high  and  low  were  nourished  from  this  spirit ! 
How  easy  to  cultivate  pleasant  remembrances  in  the 
mind  of  one's  neighbor,  by  sowing  it  with  kind 


CONCLUSION  193 

deeds  and  refraining  from  procedures  of  which  in 
spite  of  himself  he  is  forced  to  say,  with  hatred  in 
his  heart :  "  Never  in  the  world  will  I  forget !  " 

The  spirit  of  simplicity  is  a  great  magician.  It 
softens  asperities,  bridges  chasms,  draws  together 
hands  and  hearts.  The  forms  which  it  takes  in  the 
world  are  infinite  in  number;  but  never  does  it 
seem  to  us  more  admirable  than  when  it  shows  it- 
self across  the  fatal  barriers  of  position,  interest,  or 
prejudice,  overcoming  the  greatest  obstacles,  per- 
mitting those  whom  everything  seems  to  separate  to 
understand  one  another,  esteem  one  another,  love 
one  another.  This  is  the  true  social  cement,  that 
goes  into  the  building  of  a  people. 


THE    END. 


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